Billy the parrot, whose owner is an RNLI crew member at New Quay, has learnt to mimic the pager alert call and has been guilty of making numerous false alarms.
His owner, Joe Quayle, has been a volunteer member of the crew for the last two years and sometimes gets awoken from his sleep or rushes away from work only to find that Billy is up to his tricks again.
Billy is ten years old and, in addition to a perfect pager ring tone can wolf whistle, call Joe’s children Elouise and Alex and the dog Sweep by name, sings, dances, yawns and counts to five.
Joe and his family moved to the area two years ago to take over the Post Office and shop at Cross Inn near New Quay and have become established members of the local community. Joe is a keen sailor and and thoroughly enjoys the comradeship and ability to be out in all weathers as a member of the RNLI volunteer crew. He gives a wry smile when asked about Billy’s false alarms and hopes to get used to them very soon.
Joe commented:
‘As Billy is a well loved member of the family, getting rid of him is not an option!’
