Hyde Park resident Karen Bradley has been asking for her neighbors’ help in finding her beloved mourning dove Bobo, who escaped from a window in her home last month.
Bobo’s plight gained the attention of the Hyde Park community when hand-drawn signs started popping up all over the neighborhood. Bradley has put up more than 250 of them, sometimes posting them for six hours a day. She doesn’t intend to stop until he returns.
Bradley’s signs describe Bobo as being “hand-sized” and brown with black spots on his wings with yellow-and-white leg bands. He was born in Bradley’s home two years ago, to a pair of mourning doves she rescued from a falcon attack ten years ago. Falcon attacks on smaller birds were a persistent problem in Hyde Park at that time, she says. Some signs mention that Bobo has a wife and kids. Bradley says that she also houses and cares for many other birds, including Bobo’s relatives. She’s offering a reward (amount unspecified) for anyone who finds him and brings him back.
Nearly a month after Bobo’s disappearance, Bradley remains distraught. Prior to his escape, Bobo had never been outside, which makes her far more fearful about his condition. “It’s torture because inside birds don’t know how to live outside,” she says.
Many Hyde Park residents have reported potential sightings of Bobo on a Google group called Good Neighbors. Bradley herself is a frequent poster, consistently encouraging her neighbors to keep looking out for Bobo. “Please call me if you spot him,” she wrote. “He has no clue about falcons, dogs, cats, cars, windows, or how to eat outside.”
One resident reported that she saw a bird that matched Bobo’s description in an alley near Cornell and Hyde Park Boulevard. Bradley wrote that she didn’t think it was him as it was unlikely he would choose such a noisy location.
Despite his long disappearance and his lack of experience with the outdoors, Bradley still hopes that her signs will help bring Bobo home. “Everyone in Hyde Park knows about him,” she says. “My only chance is that someone will spot him from my description.”