California parrot that vanished for four years returns speaking Spanish: paper

[October 14, 2014]  LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The owner of a parrot that spoke English with a British accent says the bird went missing for four years, only to return speaking Spanish and asking for someone named Larry, a Southern California newspaper reported on Monday.

Darren Chick told the Daily Breeze newspaper that he doesn't know where African grey parrot Nigel has been for four years but that aside from the language switch, the bird is doing fine back at home.

"He's doing perfect," Chick told the paper. "It's really weird, I knew it was him from the minute I saw him."

Nigel was discovered in the back yard of a Torrance couple who run a dog grooming business and originally was thought to belong to Teresa Micco, who had placed an ad for her own missing parrot, the Breeze reported

When Micco, a veterinarian's technician, realized that Nigel wasn't her bird, she was able to trace him via the original sales records to Chick, who was stunned to recover his lost bird after four years, the paper said.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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