Photos: Penguin pays regular visits to Brazilian Man Who saved it.

Retired bricklayer and part time fisherman Joao Pereira de Souza, 71, from an island village just outside Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, discovered the tiny penguin languishing on rocks in 2011 covered in oil

The creature was starving and covered in oil but Mr de Souza took him in and nursed him back to health

It took him a week just to clean the sticky black residue from the bird's feathers.

When Dindim was well again Mr de Souza released him back into the sea, never expecting to see his new friend again.

He was astonished when, just a few months later, the penguin returned to the island where he recognised Mr de Souza and returned home with him.

Now, Dindim spends eight months of the year with Mr de Souza and spends the rest of his time breeding off the coast of Argentina and Chile.

Now the unlikely pair share a strong bond which means the wild penguin likes to spend time with the man

Although Dindim goes off to breed for four months of the year, he spends the rest of his time with Mr de Souza

When Mr de Souza first discovered the tiny penguin he was worried the starving creature would die

The flightless bird is believed to swim around 5,000 miles everytime he returns to Mr de Souza.

'I love the penguin like it's my own child and I believe the penguin loves me,' Mr Pereira de Souza told Globo TV.

'No one else is allowed to touch him. He pecks them if they do. He lays on my lap, lets me give him showers, allows me to feed him sardines and to pick him up.'

Mr Pereira de Souza said he fed Dindim a daily diet of fish to improve his strength then took him back to the sea to let him go.