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 vet who mistook Nigel, an African grey parrot, for her own missing bird.

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

"I introduced myself and said, 'Have you lost a bird?'" Micco told the newspaper. "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.