A Lost Companion : Parrot, Elderly Woman’s Pet for 40 Years, Apparently Stolen

To Magda V. Wilson, it was like a serenade. As dusk advanced each evening at her Santa Monica apartment, her companion of nearly 40 years would squawk, “I want to go to bed. You want to go to bed?”

But now the 80-year-old widow is without Baby, a yellow-naped Amazon parrot known to neighbors as a ham who loved singing to children. After years of roaming around the apartment complex greeting strangers and calling out, “How’re you? What’s your name?” the two-pound, foot-long bird was apparently stolen Saturday afternoon from a perch outside the apartment while Wilson went to work on a rosebush.

‘I Was Beside Myself’

When she returned moments later, Wilson saw a young man in a red jacket walking down the sidewalk. Then she realized that her bird, which had clipped wings and therefore could not fly, was gone.

“I ran out looking for him and, of course, I didn’t see him and I was beside myself,” she said, fighting tears. “He was a magnificent bird. He was my companion.”

Wilson, who manages the apartment complex, has been distraught since Baby’s disappearance and has had difficulty eating and sleeping. “I don’t know how a person could just pick up a bird,” she said. “I have been so confused about the whole thing.”

Well-Known in Area

Neighbors near Wilson’s San Vicente Boulevard home say the parrot and his owner were well-known throughout this quiet corner of Santa Monica. Strangers who have seen the pair on walks together have called Wilson to donate reward money after seeing posters advertising Baby’s theft.

A police report filed by Wilson valued the 43-year-old bird at $1,000, but a local pet store owner said older parrots typically sell for about $500.

“He seemed to be sort of a part of her. . . . He gave her a focus,” said Leila Mara, an interior designer and Wilson’s tenant since 1981.

Wilson’s friends said Baby was a performer who loved attention and could mimic more than 100 words and animal sounds, greeting strangers with “How are you doing? What’s your name? Want to get on my hand?”

Acquired in 1950

The German native acquired Baby in 1950 when she ran a pet store with her second husband in downtown Los Angeles. She adopted the bird and kept him after her husband’s death in 1971.

Santa Monica police report that a young man was seen in a nearby park at the time with a bird under a red jacket. Bulletins have been sent to county agencies, and local pet stores have been alerted to watch for anyone trying to sell the bird. There is a reward offered, but Wilson would not specify the amount.