Bird Steals Holiday Money!?

[♫anna♫]

Warning Retro Joke!
Q: What kind of bird steals money?
A: A Jailbird!

Nyuk! Nyuk!
www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2273831/Parrot-steals-mans-money-New-Zealand-campervan-theft.html#axzz2KBFISLOA
Who's a pretty naughty boy? Parrot steals man's money from New Zealand campervan
Feb. 5, 2013
There are several ways – if you are truly unfortunate – that you might become the victim of theft on your holiday: the unfelt hand of the pickpocket; the aggressive attentions of an opportunistic criminal if you stray into the wrong part of town; the open hotel window.

Such incidents are thankfully rare – but perhaps not as rare as the light-fingered incident that ruined one Scottish traveller’s tour of New Zealand earlier this month.

Or should that be ‘light-clawed’?

Peter Leach, from Glasgow, was forced to report a distinctly unusual robbery – after his cash was stolen from his campervan by a parrot.

Mr Leach claims that he lost a considerable sum – around 1300 New Zealand Dollars (£700) ( US $1,000 )– when the kleptomaniac bird flew into his vehicle and seized the money.

The banknotes were apparently stored in a small cloth bag that was left on the dashboard.

Mr Leach had stopped to take a photograph, leaving the campervan unguarded.

The first he knew of his loss was when a Canadian couple walked past and alerted him to the eagle-eyed parrot’s distinctly magpie-like behaviour.

‘We’ve just seen that bird take something out of your campervan,’ they told him.

This dastardly feathered crime left Mr Leach distinctly underfunded.

‘It took all the money I had,’ he told Stuff NZ. ‘I was left with 40 dollars in my pocket.’

With no sign of the feathered highwayman and little prospect of recovering his money, Mr Leach reported the incident to the police so that he could make an insurance claim.

The incident was treated with the utmost professionalism at the local station. At first.

‘The man I dealt with was very serious for the first few questions,’ Mr Leach says.

‘Then he said: “Do you mind if I just stop to laugh?”

Police have not issued an arrest warrant for the suspect, but if the parrot is apprehended, it could well itself up before the beak – and at risk of being caged.

[Deleted]

Poor man; I hope he had holiday insurance.

The kea is a blinking nuisance. When we were in New Zealand we were warned about them; one story we heard was of a woman who left her car with the sun roof open; she returned to find the whole car vandalised.