MacGyver a survivor

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This article was published 27/12/2016 (3466 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He’s made friends, fallen in love and learned to communicate in many languages — bird and human — in his new home.

Now he’s rehabilitating a leg injury.

It’s been a busy year for MacGyver the budgie.

You might remember MacGyver, the little domestic tropical green-and-yellow budgie who was living outside in -25 C temperatures in Winnipeg at this time last year and survived for nearly three months because a flock of sparrows took him in.

He was named MacGyver by his rescuers after the 1980s TV series character who could make contraptions out of scraps, because of the creativity and patience needed to catch him unharmed. After 16 days of monitoring a trap cage in the backyard of a Southdale home and several near misses, MacGyver the little budgie was eventually safely captured Jan. 1, 2016.

Since, MacGyver has been living happily as part of a bird family in the Southdale home of Melanie Shura, president of the local resource group Avian Welfare Canada. It took a few months and some significant veterinarian bills to address a few initial health concerns generated by his life outdoors before MacGyver made a full recovery and transitioned from being a wild bird back to a domestic bird.

Shura said MacGyver needed about two months to adjust to the other birds. MacGyver and the other 10 other birds in her home are free flying, moving freely in and out of their cages during the day.

“He’s absolutely fascinating. He’s learned to speak every bird language (in her flock). He speaks fluent cockatiel, lovebird, amazon (parrot), he also speaks macaw and he still speaks sparrow,” said Shura, referring to the sounds birds make that are distinctive to their breeds. “He is a very interesting bird.”

Last week, he suffered an injury to his right leg while flying in the house, possibly while visiting a lovebird named Roark, with whom he has pair-bonded. MacGyver had a below-the-knee amputation Dec. 12 but is well on the road to a full recovery.

After surviving what he did in the wild, it is only a minor setback for the plucky budgie.

“He’s hopping around and perching,” Shura said, noting he is wearing an e-collar to protect him from picking at the leg as it heals. “He wants to get to business.”

She said MacGyver, likely about two or three years old, is intelligent, playful, affectionate and social.

During the past year, Shura said MacGyver has easily learned to say several human phrases.

“I’ve been working with him all year and he perches on fingers, flies onto shoulders. He says, ‘pretty, pretty, pretty budgie,’ he says, ‘I love you,’ ‘want a cookie’ and I’m trying to get him to say ‘cheeky monkey!’”

Shura said he’ll also say ‘kiss, kiss’ and kiss her on the lips.

That’s quite a transformation from where MacGyver was when Shura first brought him to her home Jan. 2.

He was afraid of human hands and would not even take millet at first.

Shura said MacGyver had likely been living outdoors nearly three months, but no one is certain. As early as Oct. 16, 2015, he had been sighted in a yard. She said he survived likely because he joined the sparrow flock and he learned from them to eat at bird feeders.

MacGyver was brought in from the cold last New Year’s Day through the combined efforts of Shura, Sylvia and Norm Cassie, Shelley and Val Corvino and posts on the Winnipeg Lost Dog Alert Facebook page that had helped track his movements from the area near the Royal Canadian Mint to Southland Park.

The little bird was safely captured in a trap cage set up by Shura at the Corvino home.

“Budgies are not meant to be outside, they’re in big danger out there,” she said, noting they are tropical birds with bright feathers that allow predators to spot them quickly in the wild. “They are easy prey for predators like raptors and feral cats.”

Early in his arrival at her home, Shura said a turning point for MacGyver was when she introduced him to two male cockatiels, Nelson and Chico, who mentored MacGyver like “uncle birds” and taught him how to eat, relax and other domestic bird skills.

She said MacGyver has become attached to her flock and will stay permanently because he is pair-bonded with Roark.

“My best stories and my best experiences have pretty much always been with budgies. That’s another thing that I really love about MacGyver. Their connections are profound and their social-welfare systems are profound. There’s a lot that can be learned from budgies,” Shura said.

Budgies typically have a life expectancy of around seven years.

ashley.prest@freepress.mb.ca