Parrot story
Rosie, a six-year-old grey parrot who lives with the Desai family in Chorley, went missing after escaping from a temporary cage whilst her main cage was being cleaned out last week.
This left her owners, Fatima and Shoaib, and their parents, heartbroken – with Shoaib spending long hours searching for her with no sleep.
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Hide AdAnd after a social media post appealing for help to find her went viral, thousands of people across the region joined the campaign.
After four days, she was found about a mile away from home.
Shoaib, 32, also known as ‘Speedy’, said he was “devastated” when he was at first unable to find Rosie, who can speak in English, Arabic and Gujarati.
Shoaib said: “It was mayhem looking for her.
“It was early mornings and long nights.
“That’s four days I spent looking for her shouting, whistling and ringing bells in the area.
“It was just devastating – I wasn’t eating or sleeping because I was just crying all the time.
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Hide Ad“But it’s thanks to everybody who helped to keep my spirits up and reporting sightings to me that helped.
“I spent hours and hours looking for her and we had searched every street and field in the area.”
On Sunday, Shoaib had been out searching for Rosie when he was driving back past Chorley Police Station and noticed something at the top of a high building nearby.
“So I pulled over and whistled. I wasn’t sure it was her because she was so high up. But she understood and knew it was me.
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Hide Ad“She just did a 30 degree dive onto the tree outside the police station.
“I felt like collapsing, my heart stopped – I couldn’t believe it.
“I was crying because I thought we had lost her forever, but I am so happy we have got her back. It’s a feeling of mixed emotions – I feel like I have won the lottery.”
Shoaib said that without the support from friends, family and people on social media, he wouldn’t have found Rosie.
“The help we have received has been immense,” he said.
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Hide Ad“People we didn’t even know were sending us messages to say they would help by looking and supporting us and keeping my spirits high.
“I would like to thank everybody for the overwhelming support they have given us.”
Shoaib’s sister Fatima, 19, was the one who decided to share the appeal online.
She said: “Four hours into looking for her I put a post on Facebook and shared it across different pages.
“Everything went crazy from there.
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Hide Ad“Social media was such a big support to us because we were devastated and didn’t know what else to do.”
A video of Rosie posted after she was found became such a success on Facebook that the Desia family has now decided to post regular updates for people to see what she is getting up to.