All shook up with Elvis missing

ELVIS has left the building.

The Aranui Home and Hospital in Mt Albert is more like Heartbreak Hotel after Elvis the cockatiel flew away on December 29. He had been at the rest home for 13 years.

Elvis was doing his rounds and visiting the residents when all of a sudden he flew to the roof and hasn’t been seen since.

‘‘He just disappeared very fast. He has never done anything like this,’’ diversional therapist Marina Macfarlane says.

‘‘He’s always been one for being out of his cage and he sits on the shoulders of residents and talks.’’

The bird’s wings had been clipped but Macfarlane thinks they may have needed doing again.

Residents and staff are hoping somebody might have found Elvis and be looking after him.

‘‘He didn’t like to be on his own, he loved people,’’ Macfarlane says. ‘‘If he hasn’t been killed I’m sure someone must have him because he is so tame.’’

Resident Barbara McGee says the place has been quiet since Elvis flew the coop.

‘‘He was very friendly, I wasn’t too keen on him on my shoulder but I liked talking to him while he was in his cage,’’ McGee says.

‘‘I still look at the cage when I walk past just in the hope that he’s come back.’’

Some residents won’t let Macfarlane remove the cage and have been hunting for Elvis around the gardens.

‘‘He used to visit everybody. He was very well loved here,’’ Macfarlane says.

‘‘A lot of the people he would sit with don’t have any speech any more, so it was lovely, they would communicate in their own way.’’

Elvis is a grey male cockatiel. They have a distinctive yellow face and orange markings. He is a chatty bird and would often mimic residents around the home.

If someone out there does have Elvis, the residents at Aranui Rest Home are hoping they’ll do the right thing and return to sender.