A cockatiel’s very incredible journey home

Facebook has been a great social media platform to find long-lost friends and maybe even family members. But what about a long-lost pet cockatiel?

Benjie flew his Lynbrook coop July 16, and Elizabeth Podgorsky feared she’d never see her gray bird again.

Benjie had lived in the Podgorsky household for four years, named after Benjen Stark, a ranger guarding the giant wall of ice on the northern end of Westeros from the popular HBO drama series, “Game of Thrones.” He was one of the last vestiges of a now-closed pet shop in Mineola that bred birds and hand-raised them for sale.

“The bird is doing what he normally does, which is hop from shoulder to shoulder,” Elizabeth remembers. “He hopped on my shoulder. I didn’t know. I went outside, and I started feeding lettuce to the turtle, and my husband says, ‘You know the bird’s on your shoulder.’”

The shock of that caused Elizabeth to scream, since Benjie never ventured outside the house.

“I must have spooked him, and he flew off,” she said. “Going outside with the bird on the shoulder and getting lost is like, I have nightmares about this when I’m stressed. This is my stress dream that I lose my bird doing something like that.”

Elizabeth’s shriek not only scared Benjie, but alerted her neighbors, too. Soon enough, they had joined her outside looking for the lost bird. Following a frantic search and an unexpected rainstorm, one of Elizabeth’s neighbors suggested she hop on Facebook and post about Benjie. Like his fictional namesake, the bird could be almost anywhere. And hopefully he’d show up when the family least expected it. 

Elizabeth combed through Facebook, discovering numerous pages she could share Benjie’s plight.

“Please help,” she wrote. “My bird Benjie got out this morning. Piccadilly and Westminster. He likes feathers and millets, and sings dozens of songs. He’s very friendly. If you see him, please catch and notify me via Facebook.” 

And then it was all about waiting. So many on the platform wanted to help, sending Elizabeth messages on what they hoped were leads to finding Benjie. But none panned out, Even worse, she was inundated with fake accounts, some even trying to scam her. 

“I was devastated because he’s my baby, now that my children are grown,” Elizabeth said. “I figured I would never ever see him again.”

In her virtual search, however, Elizabeth stumbled upon a Facebook group for cockatiel owners, where she hoped she might someone who had lost their bird, too, only to find them again. She was comforted by many of the comments she read, assuring her that escaped cockatiels generally don’t venture too far, usually staying in an area near the house.

So where, then, was Benjie? Not close to home, at least. Nope. Benjie was more than 20 miles away, in a village inside the Town of Oyster Bay.

The discovery actually came through a larger Facebook group that focused on finding lost dogs and cats across Long Island. It was a comment to her post that simply stated: “one was found Muttontown.”

With the comment was a picture of a man with a cockatiel that looked a lot like Benjie standing on his shoulder. The man wasn’t part this particular group, but he had made his own Facebook post elsewhere, which also was shared in the comments.

“Hi! This bird showed up at my house in Muttontown. Definitely believe it is someone’s, just based off the way it is behaving. Please reach out if you know anything!”

That cockatiel certainly looked like Benjie, but Elizabeth was skeptical. It had to be another scam.

Despite her better judgment, Elizabeth reached out to the Muttontown family, and after a quick video call, Elizabeth decided to make the journey to the North Shore herself to determine once and for all if this was Benjie, or just some other cockatiel.

How could she tell? Benjie had once injured his leg flying into a door. It left a scar.

“So, the first thing I did was I looked for the scar, and I saw the scar,” she said. “And then I looked for the tail feathers, the slightly curled tail feathers, and I waved his favorite bag of treats and saw his reaction. Oh, no, it was him! How did he fly all the way out here?”

The Muttontown family prefer their anonymity, but Elizabeth wanted to give them her offered reward of $500. They declined. She offered to make a donation to a charity of their choice, but that, too, was turned down. She ended up mailing the family a thank you card.

“You know, I think that they were just kind good Samaritans who wanted to unite a bird with his family,” Elizabeth said. “The whole thing genuinely made me restore my faith in humanity.”

Elizabeth was so pleased to see Benjie again, she didn’t even put him in his travel cage on the way home. Instead he rested on her shoulders the entire journey back. 

Once the cockatiel got settled, Elizabeth returned to her computer one last time. “Update: Reunited!” she commented on her original Facebook post. “Benjie is home safe and sound after 21 hours, 29 minutes.”

And 20 miles.