Birdnapped Again! Milton's 'BB' Goes on Another Vacation Out West

Milton City Manager Chris Lagerbloom has a background in law enforcement, so the kidnapping of "BB" from his office for the second time in three years might sting a bit. Or did the "buzzard" take flight on its own, abandoning the summer heat of Milton for the parks and vistas of the West?

Navajo children, park rangers and other people on vacation have greeted the flightless bird–OK, it's a stuffed plush toy bird–in its second vacation.

But Lagerbloom's explanation of why he even has the buzzard in his office is as good as the story of its second vacation.

"A couple of years ago, when the city was more or less in transition, and we seemed to get city managers every four moths for a while, just days before a transition these two living buzzards would show up at ," Lagerbloom said.

The carrion birds stood at the front door, right outside his office window and would hang out of the roof of City Hall, almost like clockwork. They showed up every time a transition was coming, and he said it became uncanny.

Doug Nurse, who then worked for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, even wrote a story about it back on Jan. 16, 2008.

Today's second "vacation" for BB stems from that time. Patti Silva, a member of the city's Historic Preservation Committee, latched onto that story when she saw that each time there was a transition, every city employee had these pins on with a photo of a buzzard and of Lagerloom.

"After that day, they became known as Chris's buzzards," Lagerbloom said. "Patti caught on, got a stuffed buzzard."

A few days later, and "BB" mysteriously disappeared from his office, only to pop up in his email­–and on Silva's Miltonville blog–as it traveled out West on a vacation.

Fast forward to this week, and "BB" has flown the coop again. Silva supplies Lagerbloom with fresh eggs, and on the same day she picked up the basket she uses to bring them to the city manager, "BB" disappeared also.

"Now it's kind of fun to watch this buzzard travel across Arizona, meeting park rangers and kids," Lagerbloom said.

He said they haven't seen the live buzzards at Milton City Hall for more than a year, but he did see one flying and landing on top of Alpharetta City Hall not too long ago. Should Alpharetta be worried?