Fire crew rescue Trowbridge woman stuck in tree with her parrot

The six-months-old blue and gold mccaw started a flap that saw Dorset firefighters getting called out to rescue a woman who tried to catch Missy – and then got stuck herself.

Missy’s owner Leanne Jones didn’t know what to do when the young bird took off unexpectedly.

“She was out in the garden with me and she took me by surprise when she suddenly flew away, which I think took her by surprise too as she is only 23-weeks-old and has never flown before,” said Leanne, 32.

Missy flew up into a tall tree and stayed there despite Leanne’s attempts to call her down.

“I’m scared of heights so my sister Toni tried to get her by climbing up the tree, but then she got stuck,” said Leanne.

So Leanne had to call out the fire brigade.

A Wiltshire fire service spokesman said: “We were called to Woodlands Edge, Trowbridge at 9.51 on Saturday morning to rescue a woman stuck approximately 18ft up a tree after trying to retrieve her parrot.

“A rope rescue team from Trowbridge and a crew from Warminster attended, and a 12-metre ladder was used to bring the woman to safety, with the stop at 10.29am.”

Although the firefighters do regularly rescue pet birds and animals from trees, they have to be formally asked to help by the RSPCA and the animal charity was not on site at the time.

To make matters worse, Missy appeared to be frightened herself.

“She didn’t know how to get down and every time she tried the wind took her to a higher branch,” said Leanne, who then turned to private enterprise and booked a cherry-picker from a Trowbridge company, cherrypickerhire.me

“It’s the first time that I’ve been called to rescue a parrot,” said owner Michael Barum, “I was just pleased to help the lady. We had to extend the picker to its further length to reach the bird.”

Cherry-picker crew rescue Missy in a blanket

Missy was caught safely, wrapped in a blanket and returned to her very relieved owner.

Leanne said: “The whole community was so supportive and I want to thank everyone for their help. I want to send a massive thank you to the cherry picker company and also to Adam, a friend of a friend, who took charge when I was exhausted and made the rescue complete and organised the cherry-picker and ensured that Missy was back in my arms.

“I’m so happy she’s home. What a worry and a lesson learnt in a very hard way by myself. We have been so lucky to be able to get her back, I now know she isn’t too young to fly and will never allow this to happen again.

“I think Missy was just as shaken up as I was, it scared her because she didn’t know she could fly. From now on I’ll make sure she has a harness on if I take her outside.”