Missing budgie from West Sussex sneaks into Hickstead showground: little girl overjoyed to be reunited with ‘talkative’ Chip

Hickstead announced that the colourful bird Chip arrived at the showground on Tuesday, July 23, the opening day of the Agria Royal International Horse Show.

They said the avian intruder paid a surprise visit to the stable field, landing on the friend of competitor Emma Richards while they were washing Emma’s horse.

Emma then asked in the Hickstead Competitors Facebook group: “Is anyone missing a budgie? It’s very friendly.”

News spread rapidly on social media and Hickstead was soon put in touch with Chip’s owner, seven-year-old Sienna Venn from Albourne, whose family had been posting about the missing bird for days.

Sienna’s mum Shelley Stevenson, 36, told the Middy: “It was Friday (July 19). We were having a barbecue and a friend’s son – he’s a lot younger – let him out of the room he’s normally in and Chip flew through the house and went through the kitchen window.”

Shelley said: “To be honest we didn't think we were going to get him back.”

She said the family have only had the ‘talkative’ bird for seven months and said Sienna was devastated when he escaped.

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She said: “He’s become such a massive part of the family because he’s in our main living room and he’s out all day, free flying. As soon as you enter the room he will fly and sit on your shoulder and he talks all day. Everyone’s become way more attached to him than we actually realised. We didn’t think he could be as interactive as he is.”

Shelley explained that Chip will mimic people all day with phrases like ‘what are you doing?’, ‘baby baby boy’ and ‘cute baby bird’.

Sienna, who arrived at Hickstead with her family last Tuesday, was relived to be reunited with Chip and very happy to see him again. Hickstead said Emma also received a reward for finding him.

Shelley said: “We were really, really lucky because the next day it was absolutely torrential and I don’t think he would have survived that. He’d already spent four days out and when we got him back he was absolutely starving.”

She thanked everyone in the area and on Facebook who helped search for Chip, adding that at one point a group of boys in Hurstpierpoint thought they had seen him, but it turned out to be a different bird.

Shelley said: “We were being tagged in posts everywhere. It was going wild. It had been shared so many times.” She added: “Without everybody actively looking I don’t think we would have got him back, because where we live, we on about 40 acres of farmland, so it’s not like he's just going to pop next door to a neighbour. He was miles away from anyone.”

A spokesperson for Hickstead said: “We’re so pleased this story had a happy ending – and we hope Chip enjoyed his birds-eye view of the action.”