We know that parrots are talkative animals capable of imitating some human words. But it is not very common to hear about a parrot that changes its accent and also speaks a new language after disappearing without explanation for 4 years.
This is what happened to Nigel, an African gray parrot, who was reunited with his British owner Darren Chick 4 years after flying away from his California home in 2010.
Chick was born in the UK, but lived in California with her parrot. In 2010, the parrot disappeared without a trace and ended up in an unknown home where he learned to speak Spanish and lost the British accent that his owner had taught him.
Surprisingly, Nigel was discovered in Torrance, Scotland by dog grooming business owner Julissa Sperling, who took him in while trying to match Nigel up with lost pet ads. Sperling said that he was a very happy bird, he used to sing and talk uncontrollably. He also barked like his dogs.
Sperling is from Panama and was surprised to find that Nigel was repeating words in Spanish. In particular, he used to say “What happened?”.
Initially, Sperling gave Nigel to Teresa Micco, believing him to be her lost parrot from an advertisement. But Micco realized that she wasn’t her pet.
She had been searching for her own missing parrot, but decided to connect Nigel to his owner, locating him through Chick’s original California sales records. Chick was finally reunited with his lost pet, 4 years after she went missing, in 2014.
Despite Nigel initially biting him when they were reunited, Chick said seeing his long-lost pet for the first time in four years brought tears to his eyes. He too was surprised to realize that Nigel was now repeating words in Spanish and had lost his British accent.
Often the parrot would also ask for someone named Larry, who probably took care of him when he disappeared and taught him to speak Spanish. Despite their time apart, Chick knew immediately that this was his parrot, and they have been together ever since.
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Guardian