WHEN Spike the cockatiel escaped, she couldn't have known how much fuss she would cause.

But the colourful character has lost none of her admirers despite her errant behaviour.

For while Spike, now renamed Claudia, set up home in Sara Clegg's Acacia Avenue garden, her real owners were searching high and low - 25 miles away in Moulton, Northwich.

"Everybody knew I was looking for Spike," said Geoff Bancroft. "I was looking for a couple of weeks all over the village.

"But she seems to have flown in a straight line to Knutsford. It's taken four weeks for her to get there."

Spike had fended for herself for six weeks before Sara took her in after she started looking a bit worse for wear.

But it was only a chance reading of the Knutsford Guardian by a neighbour in Moulton that alerted Geoff to her new home.

Geoff said that he'd been looking after Spike for his eight-year-old granddaughter Lauren who was away on holiday.

"I was a bit upset when I left the accidentally left the front door open," said Geoff.

"She flies all over the place and goes in the bedrooms and has a nibble here and there."

Soon Spike - after a spot of rest and recuperation in a Mere animal sanctuary - will be reunited with a delighted Lauren.

"Even the lady at the sanctuary has got attached to Spike and doesn't want to part with her," said Geoff.

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