'A Miracle': Pet Reunites With Owner After 6 Weeks Apart

PORT WASHINGTON, NY — Fifty-two miles in six weeks. That's how far one pet bird traveled before being reunited with its owner.

Harley, a 15-year-old Quaker parrot, flew the coop on the evening of July Fourth. And every day for those six weeks, Edith "Edie" May's routine was the same: Wake up. Look for Harley. Repeat.

Over and over again, May would drive around in her Mustang convertible — hoping to find her beloved Harley. And every day, she'd come back empty-handed.

"People thought I was crazy," May said in an interview with Patch.

Eventually, community members caught on and joined the search. "(Then) when people saw me driving around, they began to shout 'Harley! Harley!'"

Desperate to be reunited with Harley, May also posted in community forums for bird owners and distributed around 1,000 flyers to deli managers, supermarket staff and neighborhood children. An elderly couple got so invested that May said they bought a cage and some feed in hopes of catching the bird.

"It was becoming a community thing," she said. "I met so many people promising to keep an eye out. There were hundreds of people I didn't know who shared the news online and said they were praying for me and my bird. It was so overwhelming that people gave a crap."

Finally, on Aug. 17, May received a phone call with the news she'd waited so long to hear: Harley had been found.

"It's a miracle. I got a call from one of my girlfriends in Port Washington who works for a law firm," May recounted. "She said there's a bird like Harley that's in Port Washington and forwarded me Linda's number."

Manhattan resident Linda Strauss posted on Patch about the missing bird a few days earlier — asking if anyone knew whom it belonged to. After interviewing Strauss, Patch wrote a separate story about Harley and, eventually, May's friend got wind of it.

Patch previously reported that Strauss spotted Harley trying to drink the saltwater at Port Washington's Safe Harbor Capri. Springing to action, Strauss gave the bird some food and water, while her husband went out and purchased a cage and some seeds. Then the couple brought the bird to the marina's office.

At the time, Strauss told Patch that they had "several people express an interest in adopting" Harley but hoped "to be able to unite (him) with (his) family."

And that's exactly what happened.

A day after getting a call from her friend, May drove all the way to Port Washington to retrieve who she hoped was Harley.

There were two big indicators to suggest that the bird was, in fact, Harley. One: He loves to play with May's rings. And two: He is drawn to May's blonde hair.

"I stuck my hand in the cage and, sure enough, he was playing with them," she said. "I put my hair near the cage and he started twirling it with his beak."

But the real test was when Harley reunited with May's other bird, Peanut. When they got home, May kept Harley in a separate cage from Peanut. That's because, according to her, if they didn't know each other, they'd be afraid of each other.

Once May brought water to Harley's cage, the bird "used all this force in his body and pushed his way out" to get to Peanut.

"He circled the living room, like, three times and then went on top of the cage and gave Peanut a kiss," May said. "And I started to cry."

Now that Harley is back home in Mastic Beach, May wants to write a children's book. It's still in its beginning stages, but May says the book will be titled "The Adventures of Harley" and will be about the bird's long journey across Long Island and the friends he met along the way.