NORTHAMPTON, England — A parakeet named Luna vanished from her family's living room on a quiet afternoon this week, and by the time anyone found her, she was several feet underground in a storm drain.
Cimberley Frost, who lives about a mile from where Luna turned up, told rescuers the first sign of trouble was silence. The budgie, she said, is "always squeaking and talking," and when the house went quiet the family checked the usual places before noticing a kitchen window had been left open. They searched the neighborhood and played recordings of budgie calls in hopes of luring her back, without success.
Luna surfaced instead about a mile away, after a driver spotted the bird slipping into a drain and called the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Inspector Richard Durant and trainee animal rescue officer Rosie Cowie responded, and Durant said the drain had likely looked like a safe hiding spot to a frightened bird far from home. "Luna saw it as a hidey hole," he said, "but if she hadn't been seen then no one would have known she was down there."
A first rescue, and a happy ending
It fell to Cowie, on her first callout since joining the RSPCA, to reach into the drain and lift Luna out by hand before placing her in a pet carrier. "I gently grabbed her and popped her in a pet carrier," Cowie said. "My first rescue, and one I certainly won't be forgetting."
A second officer, Ellie Grindod, tracked down Luna's owners after hearing about the rescue and reunited the bird with the Frost family. Frost said the relief was immediate. "The house was so quiet without her," she said.
The RSPCA did not say how long Luna had been missing before she was found, but she was unharmed by the ordeal, and the family has since begun keeping a closer eye on open windows.
