A donkey has delighted Oldham residents after appearing once again on top of the local hill it calls home.

The donkey, named Sparthfield after a now-closed ward at Rochdale Infirmary, has taken residence on top of a hill in Waterhead for eight years.

However, for the last six weeks, the donkey has been missing in action, after it was injured by a horse.

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Now the donkey is back, resident Mark Booth said he is happy to hear him again following weeks of absence.

Mark said: “He makes a right racket – he eeyores every morning. Every couple of hours, he’s always up there making a right racket.”

“We call him Dave,” his wife Katie said, before adding that the donkey "sounds like a trumpet".

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Mark added: “You can imagine he’s on top of the hill, when he starts eeyoring it echoes out over the houses.

“He goes for about five minutes, he doesn’t just do it a couple of times, he doesn’t stop, from about 7am. He carries on all day depending on what mood he’s in.

“He’s not been up to the top of the hill since he’s been poorly. He’s part of the furniture, he’s always up there.”

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Mark said ‘Dave’, as he knows him, has become ‘part of the furniture’ in the area – and has even visited his back garden.

Mark added: “It was scared once and it ended up in our garden, so we spoke to the owner and apparently they bought it to keep the horse company in the field.

“I just walked in and told my wife, I said ‘There’s a donkey in the garden’ and she goes ‘What!?’

“She runs out and there was a donkey eating the grass in the garden.”

He added that the hill the donkey calls home is a "cracking hill to sledge down when it’s snowing".