Parrot Missing for Years Returns Speaking Spanish

Parrot missing for years returns speaking Spanish

Associated Press A pet parrot that spoke with a British accent when it disappeared from its home four years ago has been reunited with its owner — and the bird now speaks Spanish.

The reunion was brought about by a Southern California veterinarian who mistook Nigel, an African gray parrot, for her own missing bird, the newspaper Daily Breeze reported.

Teresa Micco then tracked Nigel's microchip to Darren Chick, a Brit who lives in Torrance.

"I introduced myself and said, 'Have you lost a bird?'" Micco said. "He initially said, 'No.' But he thought I meant recently."

When she verified Chick's name and said she had his African grey parrot, "He looked at me like I was crazy."

He said his bird went missing four years earlier.

Little is known about Nigel's whereabouts the past four years, but Chick says the bird's British accent is gone, and it now chatters in Spanish.

Chick says last week's reunion brought tears of joy to his eyes, despite the fact that Nigel bit him when he first tried to pick him up.

Micco said the behavior was not unusual and that Nigel would settle back in soon enough.

"He's doing perfect," Chick told the newspaper a few days later. "It's really weird. I knew it was him from the minute I saw him."

It's the fifth parrot reunion facilitated by Micco, who has been running ads for her own missing bird for nine months. That parrot, Benjamin, flew the coop in February when it darted out a door that was left open.

Julissa Sperling found Nigel outside her home and brought him to Micco after seeing one of her ads.

But first, Sperling took Nigel to her dog-grooming business.

"He was the happiest bird. He was singing and talking without control," Sperling said. "He was barking like the dogs. I'm from Panama and he was saying, 'What happened?' in Spanish." Australian Man Awakes from Coma Speaking Fluent Mandarin Written by Kelli Bender for People Magazine Ben McMahon of Melbourne, Australia, can't remember the serious car accident that left him in a coma for over a week, but what he recalled upon waking up is truly astounding.

McMahon awoke from his coma with the ability to speak near-perfect Mandarin, reports IJ Review. His parents were overjoyed to hear that their son was going to be okay, but they were equally shocked by his new language skills. McMahon had taken Mandarin in high school, but admits he was never close to mastering the Chinese dialect.

For the first few days after waking up, McMahon could only speak and write Mandarin. It took several days for him to regain his comprehension of English. Even after McMahon started speaking English again, his new knowledge of Mandarin remained.

Today, McMahon is putting his surprising new skill to use. He is currently living and studying in Shanghai, and he has also spent time leading Mandarin tours of Melbourne and hosting a Chinese television show. The Chinese-speaking friends McMahon has made along the way say the Australian is the best non-native speaker they've met.

McMahon's surgeon is unable to fully explain the sudden burst of knowledge, but describes his patient's skills as new circuits at work. Simply put, McMahon's English “circuits were damaged” during the accident, so his “Mandarin circuits got engaged" in a new way to compensate.

However doctors want to explain it, McMahon is just happy to be alive and fluently speaking two very different languages.