This day looked like any other, but once Tyler Nolan, while making his coffee, looked outside, he realized that his macaw cage was open and one of his beautiful birds was gone!
Toruk, a colorful scarlet macaw, was stuck high up in the trees, and she was too scared to come down. After many attempts to lure her down, and her relocating from one tree to another, Tyler realized he needed something that would bring him closer to the bird rather than the other way around. But all ladders were too short – the bird was out of reach.
Toruk, the Scarlet Macaw, Flew Away!
Tyler: “Good morning guys. It’s a Sunday morning over here, I’ve just got up, taking care of the animals. It’s rainy, cloudy, and not that fun. I was making coffee, and I noticed out my kitchen window that the macaws are not in their cage, and Toruk is all the way up in a tree right now. So here we have this tree, and Toruk is all the way at the top. Toruk what are you doing? Why? It’s been a long time since you’ve got out.
I really don’t know how I am going to get her down. I don’t have a ladder that goes that tall.
The last time, Iris got out, he went all the way up in one of the trees, I had to call the fire department. They came out, and let me use their ladder. I might have to do that again. I don’t know. We’re going to see.”
What Now?!
Tyler: “Toruk is a really good bird, so maybe I can start climbing the tree and then she’ll see me, and she’ll want to fly down or crawl down. Maybe I can get her to fly out of the tree, I don’t know. She’s not recall-trained, so she doesn’t really know how.
The thing with birds is that, obviously, they can fly, but if they’re not recall trained, they’re not really good at flying, especially when they are up high going down. It is difficult for them. It’s always interesting. Let’s see how this one works out. The good thing is I am a seasoned vet. Let’s get a ladder, let’s get up in that tree.”
The First Attempt to Get Her Down
Tyler: “Step one, get a ladder. Step two, since the ladder is not that tall, put the truck by the tree, the ladder in the truck, and the ladder to the tree. Right, that makes sense to me. And then I am going to climb it, I am going to go up in the tree, and hopefully we are going to get Toruk back.
So I am going to have to do this good old-fashioned way and just climb this tree. Toruk, come here mama, where are you? Where did she go?”
She Flew Even Further Away!
Tyler: “She’s going, she’s flying to that tree over there. Oh my God! I think she’s off the property! Toruk just flew out of the tree. I think she got spooked from one of the branches breaking. She flew out and went to another property, probably two properties over from my house.
That whole ordeal was maybe a few hours, so we ended up going over to my neighbor’s property. Thankfully nobody lived there, they were just fixing up the house, so he let me chill back there probably for a good two hours while Toruk was around sixty feet tall up in one of these pine trees. All the way at the top.
I could tell she really wanted to come to me, she kept going to lower branches, and hanging from them and trying to let herself go, and at one point she got to a low branch, was hanging off it, trying to do like a drop-down, so she can come down to me, but as soon as she started flying downward, a gust of wind came and took her back up in the air again, and then she went even further.
She probably went a mile in the other direction and then I lost her for a good forty-five minutes. And in the meantime, my buddy Spencer hit me up. He came over to help me. Robert and Kayla came over to help me, trying to find her. I was driving around the neighborhood on my electric scooter because it doesn’t make any noise, and I could actually hear her screaming, and then finally, probably four streets down, maybe a mile or so away from my house, I heard her and then I saw people outside of their houses.
They were wondering what was going on. This dude came outside because Toruk was screaming in his tree and nobody knew what it was. They saw me, they were like “Hey did you lose something?” They’re like “What is that animal?” I said it was a bird.
My neighbors were super nice, they let us go in this backyard and try to coax her out of that tree. The third tree was actually really hard to get to, it was in the back of this guy’s neighborhood, and he had a bunch of trailers, old trucks, and just weird stuff everywhere so you couldn’t get a lift or anything back there.”
Why Didn’t You Call the Fire Department?
Tyler: “I am sure you guys are already saying “You should have called the fire department” like I did last time. To be clear, I did call the fire department and they told me they couldn’t help me out this time because they only had forty-foot ladders and this bird was easily sixty to eighty feet up in these trees. I know doesn’t look too crazy in these videos, but some of these trees are insanely tall. There’s no way you’re getting a ladder up there.”
We Came to The Rescue
Tyler: “Finally, she flies out of the third tree into the fourth tree. Now she’s at the front of the property, so we have some bananas, grapes, treats, and all sorts of stuff. We’re trying to coax her down. She wanted to come to me, I could tell she was super scared, she wanted to be with me so bad.
And then finally, once she saw Kayla with the banana, she figured out that she could climb down the branches and get closer to me which is what she tried doing. So she kept coming down, kept climbing down this tree, and that’s when Kayla found this tree trimmer guy on Facebook Marketplace. Actually, I think it was through a friend of a friend. And then he was right around the corner. He came over to the house. This guy saved our butts, he let me get up in the cherry picker and the rest is history.
This is the shortest tree that she was in for the day, but as you can see she started at the top, and then worked her way to the bottom branches, which is when we got the cherry pricker. It made everything very easy. And I was so stoked that this guy was down the street.
Surprisingly she wasn’t really scared at all, she just stayed in the tree, did her thing, and kept making her little noises. This machine was actually pretty smooth, it was not very difficult to get it over to her. We had plenty of room in the yard to put the truck, which made it real easy to get into, and as soon as she saw me and the banana she came right to me. She was super excited to get out of this tree.
If you guys ever need to save a bird, he’s your guy. His name was Robert.
Oh my God Toruk, you gave me a heart attack. What is going on you crazy bird? You are a crazy, crazy bird! Oh, you gave me a heart attack. Now you’re back where you belong, troublemaker. You got a new lock on there and everything. Yep, that’s the escape artist. Right there.
The man that saved the day guys! If you are in West Palm South Florida, or anything like that, go hit this guy up, he is awesome and, honestly, I don’t think I would have my bird back if it wasn’t for him.”
