CAG & Hawk Story

Family's pet parrot survives encounter with hawk
By ANNE GEGGIS
Staff Writer

ORMOND BEACH -- African grey parrot Bogart can talk, but he hasn't yet said a word about an incident most of his kind never live to contemplate.

What happened between the time a hawk ripped him from a screened-in porch and when his human -- the one he calls "Mom" -- Elise Ewaniuk found him lying under a tree in the thick woods probably went beyond words.

On Bogart's seventh visit to the veterinarian in a row Wednesday, the prognosis for survival was good -- even if he might always carry the scars. His veterinarian, Dr. Mark Andersen, isn't sure whether Bogart's neck will ever straighten.

And Ewaniuk hasn't quite recovered herself.

"Four days have been like four months," she said.

It all started in the early afternoon Aug. 2 when Bogart was sitting on a perch on the Ewaniuk family's screened pool deck of their home in north Ormond Beach. Then, Ewaniuk heard screaming -- but she didn't know it was her beloved "little man."

"It sounded like something scared, something being attacked," Ewaniuk said of what brought her from her home office to investigate. "I came walking out because we have a bunch of baby (wild) turkeys back there."

What she saw, though, was beyond her imagination -- and something she still sees when she closes her eyes: her pet in the talons of a hawk.

"He was just heading from the screen into the sky," Ewaniuk said. "I thought, 'He's gone. He's got him.' "

The hawk, it appears, had been able to burst through a small tear about the size of a softball in the screen and grabbed the bird known among the Ewaniuk family's friends for asking, "You talking to me?"

Ewaniuk said she ran back in the house for her shoes, ready to run into the forest behind her house.

"I guess I was going in there to see if I could find him eating him," she said.

She ran 20 feet and saw her feathered child lying under a tree.

"I couldn't believe it. I don't even know what made me run in that direction," she said, explaining that she had seen the bird fly in the opposite direction.

Bogart was rushed to Ravenwood Veterinary Clinic in Port Orange. There, he received oxygen, antibiotics and painkillers. He spent a few nights in an incubator.

"He certainly is lucky," said veterinarian Andersen. "Most attacks like that . . . I've seen birds with the wings torn off, their legs torn off.

"The bird (hawk) was probably startled by screaming and yelling," Andersen said.

He advised people not to leave their exotic birds on a porch or outside unattended.

"If they see a bird in a cage, they will reach right into the cage," Andersen said.

For now, when Bogart's not resting on her chest, Ewaniuk keeps the feathered patient in a makeshift structure formed of blankets and pillows on the sofa. She can't wait until he's back to his old tricks: chasing people out of the kitchen while laughing, attacking her husband even as he mimics Bogart's voice and insisting that Ewaniuk take a shower.

Tuesday she knew he was back on the road to recovery when he took the first sip of his favorite liquid treat: hot coffee with cream and sugar. Hope that he would be back to his old self blossomed moments after Ewaniuk brought Bogart home.

"I put him down and he said, "C'mere."

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Tracy842 said:

... but I think she should stop giving him coffee. Caffiene is toxic for birds.

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Redballoon said:

Some of us have things to do man.
If I spent my whole day just watching the bird on his perch, I would be called a zoo keeper. I would assume an enclosed perch would be a safe environment for a grey. Depends on where you live I guess. Some people have to take a shotgun with them to hang out the washing in case of bears and cougers. I just do it to look cool.

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