A FAMILY is offering a reward for the return of a much-loved parrot which has gone missing.

Ziggi, an African grey parrot, went missing from its home in Wigan Road, Hunger Hill, towards Knutshaw Crescent last Thursday.

His owner, Adrian Briggs, was letting the two family dogs out when he forgot that Ziggi was on his shoulder.

Mr Briggs opened the back door of the house and Ziggi flew off.

Since then the family have been desperately searching for him.

Mr Briggs said: "We bought him about two months ago, he is only about eight months old. We have a lot of pets, I was letting the dogs out, forgetting he was on my shoulder and when the dogs went out the bird flew behind the dogs.

"We then started searching for him. We searched and shouted everywhere that night. We searched for a whole night."

Mr Briggs, who has three teenage children, put an advert on Gumtree to try and spread the word about the missing parrot and had one sighting reported to him.

However, he said that he believes to to be a hoax as the man has stopped getting in touch and links that were meant to direct to pictures of Ziggi sent Mr Briggs to unrelated web pages.

He said: "The kids were heartbroken when they found out he had not been found. They were so happy when they thought he had been found.

"He would say hello and goodbye, his favourite word was hello, he would say it to everybody. He was just really talkative."

Ziggi is described as having red tail feathers a £100 reward is being offered for his return.

Mr Briggs, aged 43, said: "If somebody saw him in that area they would now."

The family have been up putting up missing posters around the area, including in local shops and pubs in the hope that somebody might have seen the parrot.

African grey parrots are listed as endangered in the wild and are known to be valuable to traders.

Mr Briggs hopes that the reward might encourage anyone that has Ziggi to return it, rather than sell the bird on.

Police recently issued an appeal after another African grey parrot was taken from a garden centre in Ashton.

The thieves broke in through a wooden wall before taking the parrot that was being looked after while its owner was on holiday.

The parrot was the only thing taken in the break-in.

Anyone with information or who thinks they might have seen Ziggi is asked to call 07714992964.