COEUR d'ALENE - Crystal Partenselder's quest is over.

No more patrolling alleys and streets looking up into trees. No more sleepless nights. No more wondering whatever happened to the family's pet parrot.

Tuii is home.

"When I saw him for the first time, I went over and he crawled up underneath my neck and started kissing me," the Coeur d'Alene woman said of the African grey parrot.

The bird that flew out an open door last August was back in the Partenselder house Monday resting on a perch, occasionally whistling and walking around in the kitchen and living room.

Despite being gone for more than seven months, the 2 1/2-year-old bird quickly settled into his old routines.

"He knew exactly where he was. He wasn't uncomfortable at all," Partenselder said. "He's totally at home, like he never even left."

She and her family were thrilled to have their beloved pet back. Tuii sat peacefully on Nathan Partenselder's shoulder as the teenager stood in the kitchen.

"It's amazing. It's amazing just to know, I know where he is," she said. "I always wondered. I never had any closure."

After his great escape, it set off a community watch for the gray and white bird with a red tail. Tuii was spotted at various sites around downtown Coeur d'Alene - on branches, fences, roofs - but no one could catch him.

Partenselder got calls from bird breeders in California and Oregon offering tips on how to catch Tuii. Residents tried to talk him down from trees to no avail.

He was last spotted just after Thanksgiving.

Partenselder, who never gave up hope, didn't doubt that Tuii could survive North Idaho's winter.

"Can you believe he was actually flying around for four months?" she said. "Crazy."

Last week, Partenselder received an anonymous call that a bird similar to hers was for sale in the area. She checked it out. It was Tuii, all right. There was a telltale scar on the beak. The mannerisms were the same. It knew the phase, "Want an apple?" one of Tuii's favorites.

"What are the chances of a bird having a mark on the exact same spot, and for it to act the way it is," she said. "You don't know 100 percent how your bird is going to act until you get it home, but once he was home, we knew."

It wasn't known how Tuii's temporary owner came to have it. Partenselder bought the bird, but didn't disclose the price. No matter, it was worth it. Tuii was fine and had been well cared for.

"I can't take a chance and let this opportunity pass," she said.

And Tuii has roommates, too.

In October, a Hayden man gave Partenselder a African grey parrot named "Yogi," who could be around 25 years old. Not long afterward, a Hauser Lake woman gave her a female African grey named "Willy," about 14 years old.

African grey parrots can live up to 80 years.

"It's crazy," she said, laughing. "Now I've got three of them. These guys are pretty spoiled. They get everything they possibly want. They're like kids in the morning when I come out here. When they hear my voice, they all start talking to me from under the covers on their cages."

During the daytime, the cage doors are left open so they can roam the house. Their wings are clipped, so no fears of flights.

"They communicate back and forth with each other," she said. "One will be the dominant one out of the three. We don't know yet who that will be."

Partenselder said the community response to Tuii's adventure has been wonderful.

She appreciated all the offers of birds - someone wanted to give her a cockatoo - and people like Ken Roberge of Specialty Tree Service who voluntarily searched the heights of trees for Tuii, or a woman named Tandy from Post Falls who searched for Tuii throughout the fall. Many called Partenselder when Tuii was on the lam to report sightings.

"The important thing is, they know that I got him back," Partenselder said.