Missing Silver Lake parrot found in East Hollywood

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When Alexis Readinger’s pet African gray parrot, Lola, flew the coop -- er, patio -- last month, the Silver Lake resident went into high gear to bring her back home.

Readinger turned to traveling billboards, a pet detective, a psychic and trained bloodhounds to track down the missing bird, but in the end, what brought Lola back to her was a free posting on Craigslist.

Lola turned up in a pot of geraniums on the balcony of an East Hollywood home two miles from Readinger’s. The home’s owner, Margaret Starr, spotted her there and moved quickly to grab her with a pair of oven mitts. Starr saw Readinger’s Craigslist ad and called to report that she thought she’d found Lola. Twenty-four days had elapsed since the parrot’s disappearance.

Readinger wasn’t initially sure the bird was hers, but a scar that matched Lola’s, the result of a run-in with a closing door, proved that the birds were one and the same.

When Lola left with Readinger, Starr and her husband, Marvin Friedenn, found they missed having a bird around. ‘She had filled the house with her energy,’ Friedenn said. So, at Starr’s request, Readinger used a portion of the $2,000 reward she’d offered for Lola’s return to purchase a parrot for the couple. The rest went to a cat charity.

Learn more about the search for Lola and her subsequent return in reporter Kate Linthicum’s recent stories in The Times.

-- Lindsay Barnett