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When Piou-Piou the parrot flew the coop on a sunny Sunday afternoon in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce, his owner was certain he had lost his beloved pet forever.

“I was putting some sheets on the cord, and I forgot to close the door,” said Claude Cadieux, a West Hill Ave. resident who has had the 19-year-old white-capped pionusfor about seven years. “Suddenly, I turned my head, and I saw the bird flying away.”

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Cadieux was crestfallen, but he had reason to hold out hope.

More than 24 hours later, on the evening of Aug. 7, the parrot touched down six blocks away, landing on a fifth-floor penthouse terrace where Tania McIntosh was having dinner with her in-laws at their home. McIntosh, currently on maternity leave with her eight-month-old son, has long worked in veterinarian offices and she volunteers for the SPCA.

She knew just what to do.

“He was very, very happy to be picked up by people,” McIntosh recounted. “He actually ran toward us. I picked him up, brought him straight into the kitchen, shut all the doors so he wouldn’t fly away and gave him some dinner. He had some blueberries, some grapes, some cashews. He didn’t like mangoes though.”