Cheeky parrot steals tourist's passport

A cheeky New Zealand parrot -- perhaps with a desire to spread its wings further afield -- has pinched a Scottish man's passport in a bag snatch.

The passport was in a brightly coloured courier bag in the luggage compartment of a bus heading into the popular tourist destination of Milford Sound in the Fiordland region of the South Island, the Southland Times reported on Friday.

The kea, the world's only alpine parrot, struck when the bus stopped and the driver was busy in the luggage compartment. When the driver turned around the startled kea flew away with the passport.

The bird was last seen heading into thick forest and the British passport's owner doesn't expect to get it back.

"Being Scottish, I've got a sense of humour so I did take it with humour but obviously there is one side of me still raging," said the man, who did not want to be named.

"My passport is somewhere out there in Fiordland. The kea's probably using it for fraudulent claims or something.

"I'll never look at a kea in the same way."

Kea are renowned for their intelligence and curiosity and the protected birds are also considered a pest for pulling rubber fittings and windscreen wipers from vehicles and rummaging in people's bags.