The first sign Jessie the parrot had a mind of her own came last week when she escaped her London home — on the appropriately named Cuckoo Hall Lane — and flew onto a neighbor’s roof. There she stayed, refusing to budge for three days.
Jessie’s owner called an animal rescue organization, but it too was unable to entice the blue-and-yellow macaw down.
Fearing the bird might be injured, the London Fire Brigade was summoned to the home in Edmonton, a borough in the northern part of the London metro area.
One fire engine arrived.
A ladder was deployed.
A firefighter wearing a bright yellow helmet climbed until he was face-to-face with the parrot.
He told Jessie he loved her — and tried to coax her down with a bowl of feed.
The sassy bird instead spat out some “choice words” at her would-be rescuers, according to the London Fire Brigade. (Namely to “f— off,” according to one witness account in the Evening Standard.)
“We were told that to bond with the parrot, you have to tell her, ‘I love you,’ which is exactly what the crew manager did,” said Chris Swallow (really), a watch manager with the London Fire Brigade. “While Jessie responded ‘I love you’ back, we then discovered that she had a bit of a foul mouth and kept swearing, much to our amusement.”
Firefighters were told Jessie also understood Turkish and Greek, so they tried telling her to “come” in those languages as well, to no avail, Swallow said.
Soon afterward, the parrot flew to another roof, then to a tree. Realizing she was uninjured, the firefighters left after about an hour, according to the fire brigade.
The department urged others to contact animal rescue groups if they see an animal in distress.
Jessie, meanwhile, flew back home on her own that afternoon. There, she offered a more PG-rated “thank you” to the London Fire Brigade, according to a video her owner sent to firefighters.
