Wednesday afternoon, OC Transpo tweeted about a "cockatoo" found outside its headquarters on St. Laurent Boulevard, asking for the bird's owner to give them a call.



Within minutes, social media worked its magic. The tweet was forwarded to the Ottawa and Valley Lost Pet Network, which operates a website aimed at reuniting lost pets and their owners. It turns out a posting about the bird (actually, it was a cockatiel, a smaller cousin of the cockatoo) had been put on the website over the weekend after he went missing during a fire alarm in an Ogilvy Road apartment building.



Within hours on Wednesday, Blue the cockatiel and his owner, Amber Glasner, were back together.



"I'm ecstatic," says Glasner, who has had Blue for about two years. "He hissed when he first saw me, which is natural because he was traumatized. Then he bowed his head for me to pet him. All he wants now is love."



Glasner says she has been frantic since Blue disappeared on Saturday. Cockatiels are native to Australia, and can't survive colder weather. But a tame cockatiel might also be prey to cats, or get injured in traffic.



Glasner's roommate had taken to social media, and put up posters about the missing bird. Glasner walked around whistling, but she couldn't find Blue.



"I didn't think I would ever find him again," says Glasner, who usually leaves Blue's cage door open so he can fly around the apartment. She thought the balcony door was shut when she left her apartment to go to work on Saturday. "I don't even know how it happened."



OC Transpo's manager of customer services David Pepper says an employee noticed something being attacked by four crows. Thinking it was a baby pigeon, the employee pulled up, then saw it was a cockatiel. The employee reached over with a hand extended and Blue jumped on.

Glasner was at work Wednesday night when her roommate learned that a bird fitting Blue's description had been found. An OC Transpo employee delivered Blue right to her apartment.



Jennifer Perrier-Raina, an administrator at the Lost Pet Network, says the four-year-old website gets about 20 new postings each day. About 130 cats are still missing from July alone, and about 100 dogs since the beginning of the year. The Lost Pet Network posts about 600 "happy endings" every month.



But Blue's story is one of the more unusual ones. "It's not often you see people finding cockatiels," says Perrier-Raina.



One poster on the Lost Pet Network noted: "To have a little bird returned in this big wide world is a happy thing."



It's unclear what adventures Blue encountered while he was at large. He has a scratch above his right eye, says Glanser.



"He's super-lovable, normally. Since his return, he's been a little more skittish."



jlaucius@postmedia.com



