STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The affection and anxiety are familiar on the 8½ by 11, hand-lettered sign advertising a reward for a lost pet. It’s the pet that is more than a little unusual. The signs posted around West Brighton are about Ed the robin.

Ed had been living quite contentedly with Bobby, Sandra and their son Vincent Hetzel. He watched TV and snacked on cheddar cheese and other delicacies, until Saturday night when the house was empty, and he found a window cracked open. Out he flew and his owner, anxious about his fate, has been hoofing all over from Castleton Avenue to Richmond Terrace to try to ascertain his fate.

"There are a lot of robins in Snug Harbor," said Hetzel.

A meat cutter with Pay Less Galtt Kosher Meats in New Springville, Hetzel is a burly guy with a gravely voice. No one is more surprised than he that he is so emotional over a bird, a robin.

Hetzel found Ed last year on July 4 squawking in the alley next to his apartment on Castleton Avenue.

"He didn’t even have feathers. He looked like a lizard," said Hetzel.

He guessed a predator may have dropped the bird, and started feeding him oat bread and milk from a turkey baster. Ed grew big and content.

Hetzel’s son named him. After dad suggested "Red," 13-year-old Vincent helpfully pointed out that it was too obvious.

"How many birds do you know named Ed," he asked his dad.

The family fed him crickets and worms, so he had gotten a taste of the wild life, but he also had a comfy domestic routine that included watching "The Simpsons."

"I would call him and say, ‘Ed, Homer, Homer’s on’ and he would lay on my chest to watch it and then fall asleep," said Hetzel. A snack of cheddar cheese and lettuce was an extra perk.

"He was like a little kid, a little mischief maker," said Hetzel. "He would take the straw out of my drink and throw it. If I was taking a nap, he would peck at me. He played with a toy baseball like a dog. He didn’t know what the hell he was."

"He got me through tough times. I was so busy taking care of him every two hours that it kept me not thinking about my situation, but his," said Hetzel who was treated for eye cancer over the last year.

"That’s why I am killing myself looking for him," he added.

And he is convinced that Ed will stand out in a crowd of robins. For one thing, his tail feathers are tattered. The corner of the left one is missing its white.

"His tail feathers are a little burnt. That’s how I can distinguish him. He used to fly up and sit near the light. We’d say ‘What’s that smell?’ he said.

Not your average robin, Ed is quite friendly.

"He might hop on your shoulder or eat your sandwich," said Hetzel.

Hetzel worries that Ed doesn’t know the communication birds have for signaling a predator is about or how to fend for himself.

That is the catch in raising a wild animal in captivity.

"Instinct might take over, but it’s hard to say. Since it wanted to get out of the house, that’s a good sign that things are working somewhat," said Ed Johnson, curator of science at the Staten Island Museum.

Acknowledging that it sounds heartless, Johnson said the best thing to do is to leave an animal where it is. Most of the time, the mother is nearby and will take care of the young. If not and it gets eaten, "that’s the way it goes." Interfering in anyway with migratory birds, he said, is against the law.

Hetzel can see the wisdom in that, but he says, once he helped the bird he was hooked. Like a parent, he is proud little Ed left the nest, he misses him and is anxious that he will not survive. And if he finds him?

"If he is adapted to the wild, let him be. Better to be free than have milk and cheddar cheese and be in a cage," he said. "We may never have closure, but at least his story will be told."