A householder got in to a flap when what she thought was smoke alarm going off constantly turned out to be an escaped parrot mimicking the sound in her garden.
Mischievous: Sammi, the African Grey parrot whose imitation of a smoke alarm, positioned beside her, is uncanny.
Puzzled mother Shanna Sexton spent days thinking her smoke alarm was on the blink only to find the din was being made by the potty parrot mimicking the gadget in her back garden.
Escaped African Grey Congo Sammi was whistling away for days concealed outside Miss Sexton’s back door in Torquay, Devon, and driving the 25-year-old mad.
Eventually she discovered the noise was coming from the parrot - but not before calling in a workman to check over her house.
Miss Sexton said: ‘I’d been hearing this noise for ages.
‘It was really annoying me. ‘I looked around the house, checking everything.
‘I even pulled out the washing machine.
‘In the end a workman said it sounded like it may be my smoke alarm.’
Sammi had made a bid for freedom escaping from the front door when his owner Louise Ledger, 38 came home with the shopping.
Mrs Ledger, who lives just half a mile from Miss Sexton, had spent hours each day searching for her beloved pet and even put up missing posters around the neighbourhood.
Meanwhile, Miss Sexton finally found the source of her beeping irritation was Sammi who she found perched on a water butt in her back garden.
The bird, who is known for reprimanding the dog and telling his owner he loves her had been chattering away for days.
‘I had seen the posters so as soon as I found him I ran out to call Louise,’ said Miss Sexton.
Back home: Sammi perches on owner Louse Ledger's hand, beside Shanna Sexton, who called out a workman because she believed her alarm was broken.
Three year-old Sammi has lived with Mrs Ledger and her children for the last two years.
They were all devastated when he escaped and are delighted to have their chattering chum back at home.
‘Sammi is now home safe and sound and he has not stopped yapping since,’ said Mrs Ledger.
‘I am over the moon - I am going to give Shanna a large bunch of flowers.
‘When I found out where he was I could not have got there any faster,’ she admitted.
‘I came down the stairs the first morning he was back and he said "Morning" and I thought "Oh, I missed that".'