Perched inside an aviary in Exeter is the luckiest budgerigar in the world.

The budgie is the survivor of a dramatic sea rescue that took place half a mile off the South Devon coast, where it had been bobbing between the waves on the brink of death.

No one at the Little Valley Animal Shelter knows its real name, nor how it came to be out of its depth so far out to sea, but its miraculous story is already the talk of RSPCA rescue workers, to whom it is known variously as “The Brixham Budgie” and “Captain”.

Budgerigars are small parrots that survive in the wild in the desert of Western Australia. In Britain they tend to survive only in cages inside warm living rooms. It is believed that “Captain” may have escaped from such a cage, become disoriented and then flown out beyond Berry Head, near Brixham, to crash land in the Channel.

Times Archive 1954 The prodigal bird

On being found the budgie remarked: "I'm Bobby Ritson and I live on Whickham Bank." The statement proved perfectly accurate

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There it floundered, a tiny creature on the point of drowning and departing from this world to join the choir invisible.

It was at that moment that the Torbay British Sub-Aqua Club happened to pass by. One of the members, Cathy Jackman, said: “I saw something struggling and flapping just up ahead. It was a sunny day, so I thought perhaps it was an illusion from the reflection of the sun on the water. It was bobbing up then going down again and fluttering like a moth. I shouted, ‘There’s something in the water’.

“We realised that it was a bird of some sort. His feathers were saturated, so he was heavy with water trying to keep himself afloat to breathe.

“We spun around on our boat. It took three passes as it was extremely windy, but we eventually managed to rescue the bird. It couldn’t open its eyes at first and I didn’t think he was going to make it. He was like a floppy, wet rag.”

Kevin Jeremiah, 46, the diving club’s training officer, said: “We had to wash him off and I held him in my hands, covering his head and back until he started to come back to life — chirping and running around.”

Ms Jackman, in her 40s, looked after Captain overnight before handing it over to the RSPCA. “He was all fluffed up with his eyes open and he hopped on to my finger. I was quite sad when he left,” she said.

An RSPCA spokesman said: “It’s an unbelievable story. He’s just lucky that the boat was passing at that exact moment and that they spotted him in the water. He’s quite a plump little bird so he must be well loved and cared for by somebody.”

A ring on one leg gives details of its pedigree rather than an address. The shelter is appealing for the owner to come forward.

Wild adventures

- Two fishermen rescued a cairn terrier that had paddled a mile out to sea last October after losing its owner on a walk along the Northumbrian coast

- A deer that was swept out to sea in April last year after trying to swim across the mouth of the Looe in Cornwall was saved by a lifeboat. While the animal was being hauled into the boat it gave one of its rescuers a kick “in a dodgy area”

- In May 2007 a lobster fisherman spotted a male roe deer off Portreath, Cornwall. He dragged the exhausted animal into his boat by its antlers

- In December 2005 workers in Chippewa, in the US state of Wisconsin, saw a husky dog, pictured, standing in deep snow. When it had not moved for more than an hour they took a closer look and found it was frozen to rail tracks. They managed to pull it free ten minutes before a train passed

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