On July 2, as we unloaded our parrots at our cabin in Grapeview for the long weekend, one of them (my wife’s favorite, naturally) got out of his carrier a bit prematurely and headed for the tallest tree he could see.

At Pirates Cove No. 2, across from Stretch Island in Grapeview, that was a fir tree about 150 feet tall.

We tried all those things the book says to do, and by Friday afternoon had called a tree service.

Our first climber balked at climing a 200- to 250-foot fir, but he contacted by a man named Kurt Hall who said he’d rescued everything else and offered to give this a try.

But he worried that rescuing a bird from a tree might be just a tad different than rescuing a cat.

To make a long story short, by 10:30 p.m. on Saturday we were taking our bird to an animal emergency hospital in Tacoma.

This tireless man climbed Friday night, all day Saturday and Saturday night by moonlight in 200-foot trees to save our pet.

Who’d have thought anyone could get a bird out of a tree? By hand, no less.

I want to share this mans integrity and ethics with as many people as I can and wondered how to go about getting him some notoriety.

When my wife, in total meltdown, offered to pay him his pre-aranged fee on Saturday afternoon, he was incredulous, saying, “I haven’t got your bird yet, so I won’t take your money.”

And it was a very substantial sum he was offered.

Like anyone else in a single-person commercial business in these times, he could have taken the check and bailed. But he refused to do so.

I think Kurt Hall of Pioneer Contracting is a special individual and deserves some notoriety.

BOB GRAY

Port Orchard