Banjo the parrot is home safe and sound
September 2000
Nature lover Mary Boland of Ballycogley is a happy woman.
More than two and a half years after her treasured parrot, called Banjo, went missing, the talented bird is back home again with his twin sister Bridie and the menagerie of animals that make up the Boland household.
Mary hit the headlines in January 1998 when she offered a reward of £2,500 for information leading to the discovery of the rare Yellow-Fronted Amazon, which flew out of her house when the door was accidentally left open. The ‘ believe it or not’ animal story even travelled as far as The Johannesburg Herald in South Africa.
In the weeks following the departure, Mary and her husband John appeared on radio and television programmes, appealing for Banjo’s safe return. They also travelled all over the country at the merest hint of a sighting of an exotic bird as they continued the hunt for the bird Mary bought four years ago in England, before it was even hatched.
She never gave up hope of finding him, although as the weeks turned to months and years, the realistic chances of him being discovered grew increasingly slim. Her worst fear was that he had perished on cold winter nights, or that he was attacked and killed by other wildlife.
A large number of people all over the country got in touch with Mary to offer their support, and some even kept contact during the two years that followed. When two of them telephoned a fortnight ago to tell her they had just heard on the Gerry Ryan radio showabout a parrot fitting Banjo’s description escaping from a sanctuary in Dublin before being caught again, she became very excited.
She rang the show and got the number of Ray Cimino, who runs the sanctuary. She went to visit him in Dublin just over a week ago, brining with her Bridie and another of her parrots, called Rosie.
When Mary started singing ‘I’m a Rambler’ and lilting a few Irish tunes which Banjo liked to dance to, the bird immediately flew onto her shoulder and nuzzled against her neck.
‘I knew it was my Banjo,’ said Mary, who cried tears of joy on seeing him. She didn’t need any tests to prove that this was the bird she had hand-fed and nurtured from the moment he was hatched.
Mr Cimino was at first reluctant to part with the bird in the absence of such tests though, but agreement was reached where Banjo came home with Mary in order to have tests carried out there. She remains in no doubt that the bird is definitely Banjo.
It turns out that Banjo had first been handed in to a pet shop in Co. Meath after he went missing, before being taken from there by the ISPCA and eventually sent to live in the sanctuary.
Meanwhile, the reward money is understood to have gone to Mr Cimino’s sanctuary, called WILD, in order to help it continue its work looking after other bird and other animals.