Bag of Wotsits hailed the surprising saviour of a missing parrot
A missing parrot refused to come home until she was offered some Wotsits – proving a good snack can fix just about anything.
Mango the macaw got a fright when thunder struck during a storm on Sunday afternoon.
She flew the coop at The Willows care home in Great Barr, north of Birmingham, where she lives with its manager Karen Godwin, 52, who was ‘distraught’ with worry.
Karen and her family spent the whole night putting posters up and drove around the area searching for Mango throughout Monday.
‘Two days passed and I pretty much had a meltdown and was in tears because I gave up hope of seeing her again,’ Karen said.
‘We’d had all this rain and knew she would be wet and cold, I wasn’t sure she’d know how to feed in the wild too so we expected the worst.’
But they eventually heard Mango calling out ‘hello’ from a spot 50ft high up a nearby pine tree later on Tuesday.
Firefighters were called to rescue Mango but their ladders were not high enough to reach her.
During the frantic search, tree surgeon Nathan McKane had spotted Karen’s posts about the situation on social media.
He went to help and found Mango ‘squawking away’ in the tree, which was just two streets away from his house.
‘I was told it was quite friendly but when I got up there it didn’t seem to want to come down nicely at all,’ Nathan said.
Karen said: ‘One of the binmen had a pack of Wotsits and I knew she was partial to those. You could see her getting excited when they were opened.
‘You could hear her saying “please” when they opened the Wotsits as I always ask “where’s your manners?” when she wants a treat.’
It was only when Nathan offered Mango some Wotsits that she came close enough for him to grab the back of her feathers and press her against his shirt.
‘I’ve been pecked to death and had to superglue my finger back together but I was happy to help,’ he said.
Karen added: ‘I can’t even begin to thank Nathan enough or explain how I felt when he handed Mango to me – it’s such a wonderful ending.’
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.