A Chicago man is offering $1,000 the safe return of a missing parrot.
Nicholas Butkovich, who owns the parrots, named Sam and Bufford, says the birds were posted on a backyard fence when someone in a black Jeep Cherokee snatched both of them.
"First I ran after them and they took off down the alley and I took off in my car," he says.
Bufford is now missing, but Sam got away, albeit not unharmed. His wing was run over, and the bird still shrieks when the wing is touched.
"What really gets me is the one bird was crying down the alley," he said.
Sam's escape has even the youngest the neighbors talking.
"Sam bit the woman's nose," neighborhood kid Declan Chhay-Vickers said. "She let go and Sam got ran over by a pick-up truck and is still alive."
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Though Sam is still alive, he misses his old pal.
"You can see how he's subdued," he said. " Normally I couldn't keep him away."
Butkovich still pushes Sam in a stroller to his usual neighborhood haunts, but the neighbors miss the lost part of the popular pair of birds. Everyone knows and takes pictures with the birds. Neighborhood children and pets visit them frequently.
"Lucy is quite a fan of the birds," said neighbor John Maloney, who walks through the neighborhood with his dog. " She comes by and says hello when they're out on the fence."
"It's really sad, you know," said neighbor Ewa Rzymkowska. "They were actually Nick's babies, right. We have to say."
Butkovich is working with law enforcement to find the bird he has had for 19 years and is still coping with the absence of one of his beloved pets.
"I feel rotten, but I'm holding up."
One neighbor has a message to whomever took the bird.
"Come on, bring the bird back," Maloney said. "I mean, you know, this gentleman's had him for so long They're a part of the family. They're a part of the community, and it's just foolish for somebody to walk off with a pet like that."
Butkovich just wants to see Bufford back safe.
"Just leave them on the fence. Anything," he said.
