Birds can be interesting pets. They like to take rides on their humans’ fingers, shoulders and heads—maybe they see us as moving perches. Some people clip their bird’s wings when the bird is still learning their boundaries, which means the feathered pet can’t really fly. They can flap their wings to land safely and hop a bit higher, but they can’t really fly away, so they rely heavily on their owners to move them around the house.
When a college student named Aniyah was making a cooking video for her TikTok page, she was doubling as her bird’s human perch. Aniyah wrote in the comments that she forgot the bird was on her, but Ka$h the cockatiel was calmly sitting on the girl’s head as she talked to the camera while cracking an egg into a hot frying pan.
At that point, it’s unclear what went through the small bird’s brain, but it jumped off of Aniyah’s head and into the frying pan of all places.
Yes, the bird hopped into the hot frying pan, causing her owner to scream as she tried unsuccessfully to pick her up. Ka$h screamed as her owner screamed, but she kept moving her feet across the edge of the pan, making it difficult for Aniyah to grab her. Finally, the owner gave up on the egg to save her bird and flipped everything out of the frying pan.
For the owner, the ordeal probably felt like an eternity, but in actuality, it only lasted a few seconds. The bird appears to be fine other than some egg in her tail feathers, though Aniyah did say she would call the vet when they opened. While some commenters offered information on toxins in cooking spray and nonstick pans that could be harmful to birds, it seemed nearly the entirety of TikTok was both tickled and concerned about the freak accident.
@niwerld yall… the scream i scrumpt. watch the whole thing pls. #explore #fyp #foryou #accident #pleasedontharrasme #iswearshesok
“Y’all was screaming together,” one person wrote.
“WHO DARES TO COOK AN EGG IN FRONT OF A BIRD,” another asked emphatically.
“Is the bird all good or did you yeet it into another dimension,” someone commented.
“Now why that bird hop in the skillet like that,” one woman said.
In a follow-up video, Aniyah assures everyone the bird is fine, but her feet were a little pink right after. She treated them with petroleum jelly until she can get her to the vet.
There’s debate in the comments on whether the bird’s feet really are fine, since as Aniyah was pointing out they were no longer pink, the cheeky bird lifted her foot up as if to say her mom was lying. The original video has over 29.6 million views and more than 4.7 million likes.