OTSEGO, Minn. — New friends come easy when you're a kid, especially friends with feathers.
Sol, a lost cockatiel, was in desperate need of a friend, so he stopped by a neighborhood in Otsego to find some kids he could play with.
“He landed on one of the girl’s shoulders and it really scared her at first,” Lily Robertson said. “He started hopping around to everyone’s shoulders and the kids loved it.”
Robertson was cooking dinner at the time. She said kids kept running into her house talking about a bird that everyone was playing with.
She assumed it was a wild bird the kids were playing with, but she quickly realized this bird wasn’t native to Minnesota.
“I finally went outside and saw it and I was like that is not a wild bird,” Robertson laughed. “That is someone’s pet.”
Robertson took a few pictures of Sol and started to look for his owner.
“I put it out on Facebook. The post got a lot of action,” Robertson said.
The post caught the attention of someone who recently saw another post from a couple in Champlin who were looking for their lost bird.
“I was like, this must be the bird. It looks like him,” Robertson said.
She called the owners to see if Sol was their missing bird.
“I just couldn’t believe it. I’m like, he actually flew that far? He flew 23 miles from Champlin to Otsego,” owner Richard Holm said.
Holm said Sol had been missing for more than two days and they didn’t know if they were ever going to find him again.
The two families arranged a time for them to meet so Richard could pick up Sol, but on the way to Otsego, Richard’s wife had an idea.
“We saw the pictures of this wonderful young family taking great care of our bird and my wife says to me, you know, I’ve been thinking, we can’t keep this bird forever. If we want to travel, it’s going to be difficult to find someone to take care of him. I’m going to ask this family if they would like to keep Sol,” Holm said.
The Robertson’s were shocked by the offer and needed some time to think about it, but secretly they knew right away that Sol would become a part of their family.
“I just knew how much the kids loved him,” Robertson’s husband Rick said.
“I remember seeing our son with Sol on his shoulder and how happy and proud he was. I remember thinking then, oh no, we got a bird. We’re a bird family now,” Rick laughed.
The Robertson’s agreed to welcome Sol into their family, a bird who found himself a new home.
"He really did. He found himself a new home, and he did it all on his own, with no help from us,” Holm said. “I don't know if he meant to, but he did, he found himself a new family.”