In Search of Captain: Lost Parrot Inspires Play in Brooklyn

Allen Kirson with Captain

Since last Thanksgiving Allen Kirson, resident of Kensington has been desperately searching for his pet parrot, Captain. His beloved pet for six years, Captain was no ordinary parrot. Known far and wide for her ability to sing arias as well as folk songs, Captain’s lose has inspired Kirson on a true mission of love.

Kirson has searched all over South Brooklyn, plastering neighborhoods with fliers offering a $1,000 reward for Captain’s return. (Non-musical Amazonian parrots are valued at between $500 and $1200.) Last weekend Kirson followed a lead from an animal rescuer that a green-and-yellow parrot matching Captain’s description was spotted high up in a tree in Owls Head Park in Bay Ridge. Unfortunately as soon as Kirson placed a ladder against the tree to get the bird, it flew off. Kirson says that the bird in the tree was not Captain anyway.

His search has led Kirson to consult with Rabbis and even animal astrologers, but so far nothing has helped.

“I’m still shocked she left me,” Kirson said, recalling his green-and-yellow comrade. “We had real conversations. Most pet owners have psychic connections with their pets [and] she was my companion for six years.”

“I feel in my gut that [Captain] is in somebody’s house in the area,” added Kirson.

In an added effort to find his long lost bird Kirson has written a play about his search, called “The Moveable Feast:Searching for Yehuda Bird.”

The play is “60 percent scripted and 40 percent improvised,” says Kirson, who will stage previews of the play on Thursdays at 8 and 10pm at Congregation Sheves Achim on Avenue H in Midwood beginning now until the end of February.

“You lose a pet, you suffer for at least a year,” Kirson said. “I’m going to keep looking for a year. If by next Thanksgiving I haven’t found the parrot, then I’m going to give up.”