One for our Feathered Friends : Search on for Hungarian-Speaking Parakeet

JAMAICA, Vt. - A search is on for a Hungarian-speaking parakeet that escaped its owners' summer home last week. Peetuka is a 4-year-old blue parakeet, said owner Carol Mezofi, of Queens, N.Y.


"It was a hot day and we were sitting on the porch. My mom opened the door to go inside and he flew out," she said. "We tried to lure him back in and we stayed up all night but he didn't come back. We cried for a few days I don't think we'll find him now unless we get lucky."

Mezofi and her husband Laszlo said the small blue, white and gray bird, whose name is the Hungarian equivalent of "Steve," wasn't valuable, but was important to the family.

"It's been heartbreaking for us; he was like a member of our family," Laszlo Mezofi said.

Laszlo Mezofi said his 86-year-old mother-in-law, Anna Boehm, would sit and talk to the bird in her native tongue for hours. Boehm loved the bird a great deal, he said.

"She talks to him all day long, we can hear her downstairs teaching him Hungarian words and phrases," he said. "He's really not a bird to her or us. He's a little person and part of our family."

The Mezofis searched the area near their home in Jamaica and put up signs asking people to call if they saw the bird. So far, no one has called.

The family is offering a reward.

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