Chatty Charlie back home: stolen cockatoo in Menora

Lindsay Toms said she saw a stranger climb over the fence of her family’s Menora home and into a park.

“I saw a car take off so I came out the back and thought, ‘what have they taken,’ but then I saw the cage open,” Ms Toms said.

“I felt sick – it’s like with your kids, your job is to protect your pets so it was very upsetting.”

Ms Toms and her husband Jeremy Jennings immediately made flyers and distributed them around the neighbourhood to recover the galah. Mr Jennings said his wife did not sleep the night after Charlie went missing.

“People asked if I wanted to get another bird and I said, ‘no, I don’t’,” he said.

“It’s not like an iPad – you can’t replace him. We don’t know how old he was when my mum got him but he was with us since I was 10.”

Mr Jennings’ mother Anne said she had Charlie since he flew into her Mt Lawley home.

“He nearly drove me crackers – I’d think the phone was ringing and it was just the bird,” Ms Jennings said.

Mr Jennings said someone recognised Charlie from a flyer and returned him to the Jennings’ the next day.

“For seven or eight years he lived with a Sicilian lady so he would talk with Sicilian intonations – sometimes he still does,” he said.