by Jessie Zgurski

Five of my parrots and one of my dogs recently went on an unexpected adventure that ended with them taking their first plane trip. It started when I was offered a new job as a wildlife biologist in Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada. The job involved a lot of work with wild birds so it appealed to me very much. I accepted it, and the job started on 2 May 2016. My husband and I lived in Edmonton, Alberta at the time (about five hours away) and we decided that I would move up first with five of the parrots and Micro, our Maltese dog, while he stayed behind with the rest of the pets for a couple of months to prepare our house for sale.

The five parrots that came with me were Pteri (a Blue and Gold Macaw), Mitri (a Lesser Sulphur-crested Cockatoo), Ripley (a Red-lored Amazon), Chiku (a Green-cheeked Conure mix), and Patrick Perry (a Rose-crowned Conure). All five birds took the move, which involved a five-hour road trip, very well. I moved up on 30 April 2016 and during the evening of 1 May, I noticed a huge cloud of smoke coming up from the south of the city. I later found out that a forest fire had started there, and that it had started to spread very quickly.

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