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Brazen NZ parrot steals passport, heads into bush
May 30, 2009
WELLINGTON, New Zealand --Polly wants a passport -- and isn't above stealing one.
A brazen parrot, which spotted a Scottish man's passport in a colored bag in the luggage compartment under a tour bus, nabbed the document and made off into dense bush with it, the Southland Times newspaper reported Friday.
The bird -- a parrot of the Kea variety -- made its move while the bus was stopped along the highway to Milford Sound on South Island, and the driver was looking through the compartment. Milford Sound, which runs inland from the Tasman Sea and is surrounded by sheer rock face, is part of Fiordland National Park, a world heritage site and major travel destination.
Police told the newspaper the passport has not been recovered and is unlikely to be located in the vast Fiordland rain forest.
"My passport is somewhere out there in Fiordland. The Kea's probably using it for fraudulent claims or something," the passport owner, who did not want to be named, told the newspaper.
A replacement passport from the British High Commission in Wellington could take six weeks and cost up to $250.
"I'll never look at a Kea in the same way," the man was quoted saying.
Kea, the world's only snow line-dwelling parrot, are widely known as inquisitive birds who appear to take delight in attacking rubber items like windshield wiper blades.
Native to New Zealand, the birds are found only in or near South Island mountains, where they live in high-altitude beech forest and open sub-alpine herb fields that stretch up into the snow line.
Covered mainly in brown and green feathers, they have large flashes of bright orange feathers under their wings.
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Terrorist kiwi parrots! -
yeah...that's what I was talkin about...:)
crows are neat.
My grandmother used to have pet crows that she raised from itty bitties. They lived wild but would come into the house sometimes. She would stretch her arms out and call to them and they'd come and land on her. Unfortunately, they were too smart and pesty for their own good, and after stealing the top off of her cornbread a few times, she eventually sent them to live with a friend of hers in another state (she was afraid they'd find their way back)...
my dad always promised to find a baby crow for me when I was a kid, but they nest up high and we never found an escapey... -
Curious Expeditions posted a great article last year about the influence of Ravens in literature and myth, and their awesomeness in general...
Observed in the wild, ravens prefer to hunt in the company of wolves, and the common raven has been observed using a special call to alert wolves, foxes, coyotes (and apparently, at one time, hunter-gatherers) to the site of dead animals. The canines and or homosapiens, would then tear into the carcass, opening up the delectable inside to the hungry birds.