A MIRACULOUS missing parrot has been returned home...thanks to The Gazette.

African grey parrot Roxy escaped from an aviary in Manningtree Road, Dedham, on Saturday evening after taking flight for the first time in four years.

Her distraught owner Jackie Slocombe, 50, launched a search for her feathered friend but turned to The Gazette when she had no luck.

But thankfully, an eagle-eyed reader had rescued the exotic explorer after she landed on her car in Wick Lane, Ardleigh, on Tuesday.

She contacted Mrs Slocombe and now they have been reunited.

Roxy, ten, has now undergone checks at the vets who are absolutely dumbfounded she was able to fly two miles.

"The lady phoned me and said she had flown down onto her car," she said.

"She told me she managed to get her into a dog cage because some seagulls were going after her.

"I went and picked her up.

"When I spoke to the vet they thought I was lying about how far she had got.

"They thought there was no possible way Roxy could fly.

"She has got a bit of dehydration, her eyes are a bit pink and she is absolutely exhausted.

"At the moment she isn't talking but I think it might just be all the upheaval.

"I am just so relieved."

Roxy suffered a broken wing four years ago and it was thought she would never fly again.

And since returning home she has continued to shun the skies, reverting back to jumping and hopping along her apparatus.

Mrs Slocombe has given up shifts at work as her search for the beloved bird continued.

She spent hours wandering nearby streets and fields calling for Roxy but with no luck until she was contacted by the Gazette reader.

She added: "We will be taking extra care now in case she does decide to do it again.

"We won't ever let it happen now."

Bizarrely, Mrs Slocombe's husband Andrew had been working just a few metres away from where Roxy was found.

"We keep joking she might have followed him," she said.