The Mysterious Bird Thief  
contributed by Chris Holmes
October 2005

So what is so interesting about a picture of a bird at a car wash??

Bill owns a company that manufactures and installs car wash systems. (Magic Wand Car Wash Systems, just in case you want to buy one.)

Bill's company installed a car wash system in Frederick, Md. Now understand that these are complete systems, including the money changer and money taking machines.

The problem started when the new owner complained to Bill that he was losing significant amounts of money from his coin machines each week. And this wasn't chump change either. According to records, there were several thousand dollars missing.

The owner went as far as to accuse Bill's employees of having a key to the boxes and ripping him off!!

Bill just couldn't believe that his people would do that!  Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, they went to the trouble of setting up a surveillance camera to catch the thief in action.

Well, it worked. They did indeed catch the thief red-handed on film!  Enjoy.

Yes, That's a bird sitting in the change slot of the machine.

The bird had to go down into the machine, and back up inside to get to the money!

That's three quarters he has in his beak in the picture below!

Another amazing thing is that it was not just one bird --
there were several working together.  
It was an entire nest of thieves!

Once they identified the thieves, they found over $4000 in quarters atop the roof of the car wash.

They found even more money under a nearby tree where the birds buried it.

Unbelievable.