A RELIEVED owner has been reunited with his parrot after it went missing in York yesterday.

Chico, an African Grey Parrot, flew out of owner Shane Kwiatkowski house at about 6pm last night (Saturday, August 24).

African Grey Parrots are the single most heavily traded wild bird, but their populations in Ghana have declined catastrophically, and the species is now very rare.

He said in a post on Facebook that they searched car allotments for hours but had no joy until a woman and her son found Chico at around 5am this morning (Sunday) in the Woodlea area of Acomb.

He said: "Thanks to everyone that has kept us in the loop of sightings over the past 12 hours, without your help we would have lost him forever.

"Absolutely over the moon to have him home."

Rob Kershaw and Anita Kwiatkowski also assisted in the search for Chico.