AI cartoon parody frame: a feisty green cartoon parrot spreads its wings and squawks on top of a suitcase in a cartoon airport. On-screen text reads: It chose fight, not flight.
AI-generated cartoon parody image. Not real footage.

The bird that wouldn't leave the line

On Tuesday, Oct. 13, a large green bird got into Terminal 5 at Chicago O'Hare International Airport, PEOPLE and ABC7 Chicago reported.

According to CBS News Chicago, the bird "swooped down on passengers near the Air France check-in line. It perched on people's heads, and landed on their luggage. It even tried to take a bit out of a few weary travelers." PEOPLE adds that it also perched on the line dividers and chased people around.

CBS says the bird "appears to be some type of parrot." It was missing all the feathers around its neck. Witnesses quoted by PEOPLE also guessed it was a parrot. No outlet we found confirmed the species.

"It chose fight, not flight"

The video that went viral came from Paris Elbert, an O'Hare worker who filmed the scene during his Tuesday afternoon shift. He told CBS News Chicago that the chaos lasted for hours.

"It was funny but it was crazy. Sad too," he said. "You know, everybody's just like oh, the bird is so cute and every time somebody got close, the bird just started attacking, going berserk. A lot of people wanted to get the bird, but every time they tried to either grab the bird or be nice to the bird, the bird chose fight, not flight" (CBS News Chicago).

How did it get in? Elbert said it flew in from outside "through an open door" (CBS News Chicago).

The janitor and the shirt

Lots of people tried to catch the bird, and the bird fought every one of them off. In the end, Elbert said, an airport janitor grabbed it with her shirt. She took it to a veterinarian to get it checked out and to see whether it might be someone's missing pet (CBS News Chicago). PEOPLE reports that the vet visit was also meant to find out whether the bird was microchipped. The janitor was not identified.

A witness told ABC7 that the bird "was rescued and the situation was resolved." ABC7 added that "no further information about the bird was available" (ABC7 Chicago). PEOPLE said it had reached out to O'Hare for more information. As of this writing, we haven't seen any public update on the bird or its owner. Elbert told CBS he would share an update once he heard anything.

Our cartoon version (definitely not a documentary)

In our companion video, our cartoon log character is the tired traveler in line. A feisty cartoon parrot lands on his head, rides around on the luggage, and pecks his wooden nose when he tries to help. Then a pair of cartoon arms arrives with a T-shirt. We deliberately didn't show the real janitor, just her heroic sleeves. The parrot gets the last word, and the song (an original, AI-generated one) gets the rest.

That ending is fiction. In real life, the bird was caught and taken to a vet.

The bottom line

A bird somehow flew in through an open door and claimed the Air France check-in line for an afternoon. It took one janitor and one shirt to end the standoff. We hope it's back home soon, or at least somewhere with fewer travelers to pick fights with.

Sources