Ammon News - Dad-of-three Stephen Maguire, from Glasgow, was left in stitches when he headed out to rescue a lost pet he spotted in his garden, only to realise it wasn't an 'exotic bird' at all.

A dad who set out to rescue a 'lost parrot' he spotted in his back garden has gone viral after sharing the hilarious mix-up on Facebook.

Stephen Maguire was eating breakfast at his home in Glasgow when he looked outside to see what appeared to be a bird with blue and white plumage perched on the garden fence, noting that the animal "didn't look very well".

The dad-of-three assumed the exotic bird was a lost pet and told his children he would catch it to bring it out of the cold and into the warmth of the house, before posting photos online in a bid to reunite it with its owner.

The 39-year-old approached the animal slowly in fear he may frighten it off as his wife Julie watched from the window - but moments later he rang her in stitches of laughter as he was forced to admit the parrot he had set out to save was in fact a handheld brush.

Julie shared photos of the incident on Facebook, writing: "Something to make you giggle... my husband looks out our window to our garden and says 'someone’s pet parrot is in our garden!'

"'It doesn’t look very well! I’ll go try and catch it and you can put it on a local FB page'."

"Off he goes and my phone rings. All I can hear is hysterical laughing, husband can’t actually speak. I hear... 'It’s a brush. It’s a brush!' This lockdown is affecting us all."

The post went viral, gaining more than 32,000 likes, and people were quick to defend the mistake, as one commented to say: "This is great! You can see a parrot in the first picture though!"

Another wrote: "That's made my day! I'm chuckling away here!"

Julie said afterwards: "Stephen noticed the parrot as he was eating breakfast and looking out our window which looks into our back garden.


"He told our kids that someone’s pet parrot was in our garden and that it must have escaped. He thought the bird didn’t look very well and it was freezing out there.

"He then said he would try and catch the bird and you put it on one of those Facebook pages to see if anyone has lost it.

"Stephen then got dressed with lots of layers on as it was very icy and cold. I could see him from the window and then he phoned me.

"We all laughed and sent messages and pictures to our family WhatsApp group who then made lots of jokes about getting it ‘tweetment’ and asking ‘Who’s a pretty brush then?’

"I thought I would post on Facebook for a giggle, having no idea how many people would find it as funny as we did.

"Stephen had people phoning him all day and laughing at him. We were still giggling about it well into the evening."

*MIRROR