Mei Mei the parakeet finally captured after weeks on the run in Central Park

Mei Mei is safe safe!

The escapee parakeet that spent 10 weeks living with a flock of sparrows in the wilds of Central Park has finally been captured — and just in time to save her from chilling temperatures that would have meant her death.

The 11th-hour rescue came around 9 a.m. as the bright green bird was foraging near Winterdale Arch, an area of the park she had made her home in recent days.

“We were not going to let her freeze to death. It was not going to happen,” birder and rescuer JP Borum told The Post Wednesday afternoon as she watched Mei Mei munch on millet from the safety of her Manhattan apartment.

“We cannot control nature, but this is a manmade problem. We are humans and we were going to do what do we everything that we could to make this situation right. And we did.”

The tiny Budgie had been evading capture since birders first noticed her hopping around Seneca Village on Aug. 20 with her newfound family of house sparrows.

She quickly adopted their quick and wild behaviors, but one concerning trait she couldn’t learn was surviving the impending frigid weather. As a native Australian fowl, Mei Mei would not survive once temperatures dipped below 50 degrees.

Borum, 61, and fellow birder Sean Mintz spent countless hours stalking the bird as she became slower and weaker from the cold — but somehow the parakeet continued to flee their grasp, including on three occasions in which she was nearly inside their cages.

Borum finally found success on Wednesday by faking out the bird and pretending she was just another pedestrian walking down West Drive.

“The net was a round frame and I just dropped it down. I was holding it low and I dropped it low … it was kind of like a ring toss, but it landed all around her and I immediately secured her so she couldn’t crawl out,” explained Borum, adding that the relentless bird started nipping at her hands in a last-ditch effort to flee.

Despite spending as many as 300 hours with Mei Mei — taking off just five days over the last 10 weeks from hunting her down — Borum couldn’t believe just how tiny the beautiful escape artist was.

“Once I had her in the net, she just seemed so tiny. Maybe it’s because I was in control for the first time,” she recalled.

It would be another few hours before reality settled in for Borum and she cried tears of joy at finally capturing her beloved bird.

“I was surprised, but in a way I almost wasn’t. I had a feeling it was going to happen, and I was praying. I was praying,” she said, calling the rescue a “miracle.”

Mei Mei, which means “little sister” in Chinese, is in incredible health considering her wild ride in Central Park, though Borum believes she has mites and could use antibiotics.

The bird has to spend up to 30 days quarantining in Borum’s apartment before she can be taken to a rescue facility and ultimately be rehomed, which her rescuer hopes could be in the Bronx Zoo’s Budgie Landing.

The excitement at Mei Mei’s rescue has soared beyond the birding world and sent ripples across social media, with hundreds who had virtually followed along celebrating her capture.

“New York City is a tough place for any wild creature: predators, poison, and cold weather that a budgie can’t survive. Yet for more than two months, Mei Mei beat the odds. She adapted, bonded with a flock of sparrows, persevered, and inspired countless New Yorkers who followed her story,” said Mintz, who had chronicled Mei Mei’s sightings on his X account Bagels & Walks.

“Her rescue today is a relief and a reminder of the city’s capacity for care. Here’s to a long, happy life ahead in a new aviary home.”