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Ammon News - A Pennsylvania family's pet cockatiel was identified after three years on the loose thanks to the bird's love for a classic TV theme song.

Louise Duncan said she knew the bird she found on the front porch of Christ United Methodist Church in Lancaster County was not a native species.

"I knew it was not a normal bird that comes by because it had an orange or yellow plume," Duncan told WGAL-TV.

Duncan and Pastor Roseann Goldberg-Taylor wrangled the bird into a box and contacted local animal rescue group ORCA.

ORCA posted photos of the bird on Facebook, and soon received a message from a family in Ephrata who reported their cockatiel, named Lucky, had escaped from their home three years earlier.

Libby Rannels of ORCA said rescue workers and the family compared the bird to photos of Lucky and were pretty sure of the bird's identity, but a family member suggested another test: seeing if the cockatiel would react to the theme song from The Andy Griffith Show.

"He started whistling that song, and the bird started dancing, kind of bobbing his head, so we knew then that it had to be the same bird," Rannels said.

Lucky was reunited with the family, but Rannels said the owners now live in a smaller home and determined they did not have space to properly care for the cockatiel. ORCA said in a Facebook post that Lucky will have a new permanent home as the organization's office pet.

*upi