Here's the remarkable story about our cockatoo Erkel's return.

Erkel flew off my wife Dana's shoulder while she was on the 10th story roof of our loft/condo building in the middle of San Francisco on Aug. 30th. The roof is a community center for the residents, and she regularly takes her birds individually up there for their outdoor time.

All of our birds (we have 15 different types of parrots) have their wings trimmed regularly at the same pet store we've been frequenting for over 12 years as they specialize in birds. They however don't trim the last outside feather(s) for appearance sake. We now realize that that's enough to give a bird lift in a good gust of wind, and have trimmed all their feathers accordingly (take note all).

So after alerting the SPCA, Humane Society, Zoo, vets, police, pet stores, 100s of posters, homeless people, cabbies, friends, web postings, etc. and non-stop searching, we received a call 24 hours later from the Humane Society that someone may have found Erkel.

Dana rushed over to the person who found him. What she discovered happened, we consider a miracle from God.

That person's name is Anna, a 75 year old Russian emigre, who was once a famous ballerina in her native Russia. Anna lives about a block from us in a studio apt. She saw Erkel on a ledge outside her unit. Anna crawled out onto the ledge to rescue Erkel from potentially the feral cats that live on the roof. The ledge is a deadly straight drop down to the street. Her neighbor was yelling at her to get back in her window and not worry about the bird, that it was filthy. Anna went out anyway undaunted by it all. When she got to Erkel he initially bit her but she tried again, and he came to her. She crawled back to her window with Erkel in one hand.

It's important to note that Anna uses a cane to get around.

Anna immediately went out and got Erkel all different types of seeds and treats.

Dana showed up crying for joy. Anna cried too as she had quickly fallen in love with Erkel. By the way, the apt. number for Anna is 403. Our apt. number is 403.

Even though it was obvious that Anna was not well off financially, she refused to "take a penny" of the $5,000 reward that Dana wanted to give her.

Dana's picking up Anna today and getting her a bird of her choice. The land lord said he will look the other way (the building allows no pets)since what he saw her do was so remarkable. Dana's also leaving her cash on her settee before leaving her apt.