Birdnaping Ruffles Journalist’s Feathers

A British journalist offered a $100 reward Wednesday for the safe return of Coco, the foreign press corps’ whistling parrot abducted by gunmen from a West Beirut hotel in last week’s fighting.

Coco, who for 10 years has lived at the Commodore Hotel frequented by journalists, was locally famous for imitating the whistling of an incoming shell. It also whistled the opening notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and the French national anthem. “That parrot survived 10 years of warfare and I want it back,” said Coco’s owner, Chris Drake, who is now in Cyprus.