It just so happens that two further pieces of Price memorabilia have also arrived:

Another copper token Price commissioned to mark the cremation of his son in 1884.

An exceedingly rare pamphlet from an exhibition of Price’s life in 1896. Among its many strange items was his preserved right foot 🔥

Cowlyd was thoroughly checked over by a professional rehabber and given a clean bill of health before he was released.

Getting an expert on board meant we were able to release him earlier than perhaps I would have had the confidence to do had it been my decision alone - a much better outcome.

Bonding was something we were worried about for Cowlyd’s release. As I was the one who rescued him and fed him, he quickly became very comfortable around me, but we took great care to limit our interactions with him as much as possible. He’s a wild animal, not a novelty.

Unfortunately birds of prey sometimes die because water is syringed into their airways by well-meaning but inexperienced rehabbers. Much easier to soak their food in the sugared water instead, which we also did.

Grisly aside: this also keeps the levels of fluff down which makes feeding them easier.

As he was dehydrated when he arrived with us, and as owls don’t drink, I also fed him sugared water via a syringe for the first few days.

BUT this is where having an understanding of anatomy comes in - this is not advisable unless you know *exactly* what you’re doing and have a compliant owl.

Initially, sick wild owls almost always have to be force-fed. I used this website👇 to learn the technique. We avoided owl burrito by having my husband hold him instead, which Cowlyd much preferred…

… though he still hated @elidirj.bsky.social.

www.barnowltrust.org.uk/picking-up-a...

Owls need a varied diet, but day-old chicks (a by-product of the egg industry) are a good source. I panic-bought 250 as I had no idea how long Cowlyd would be with us. So now our outdoor freezer looks like a Boschian binfire. He was also fed any fresh mice (never rats) our neighbourhood cat caught.

Also increasing the number of perches as his strength increased so he could practice gripping / jumping from one branch to the next. He went from having a rigidly curled-up claw that I struggled to open at all to it being completely indistinguishable from his good limb within 3 weeks. We were lucky.

The improvised owl physio involved gently flexing and extending each talon in short bursts to avoid any distress. Three times daily. While carefully avoiding the working claw…

Felt ridiculous but it worked, and Cowlyd was thankfully a very compliant and gracious patient.

I’m also a medical doctor (a red-headed pathologist who researches ghosts - yes, I’m a walking cliché), so had some transferrable skills. We probably wouldn’t have risked it if I didn’t have this background knowledge (albeit not directly owl-based). As I’ve said, safe rehab is complex and hard work.

We don’t have any specialist wildlife vets near here. Our local vet is a small centre that does exemplary work caring for pets / livestock, but doesn’t have the resources to care for birds of prey. I’d assumed they would pass him on to a rescue centre, but the nearest owl charity is way out of area.

Rehabilitating an owl is extremely time-consuming and complex, not to mention expensive. They smell, they bite, their talons are razor-sharp and they understandably hate being handled.

It’s also extremely illegal to keep wild birds of prey as pets in the UK, even if they can’t be rehabilitated.

We now have the privilege once more of being serenaded nightly by his hoots from the nest he shares with his mate in the oak tree outside our house. One of the most surreal yet worthwhile commitments I’ve ever made.

If this folklore malarky ever falls through, I think I might have found my calling…

With advice from a zookeeping friend and the help of family and Airborne Warriors, Talsarnau, Cowlyd was successfully released during the last stretch of balmy weather at the tail end of September.

Yes, that’s me almost being knocked sideways by the sheer force of him bursting out of his cage.

By week 2 he was using his claw to weakly grip his perch and was allowing me hand-feed him freely. By week 3, he was able to rip food by himself, and other than changing his pecked bandages and a daily dose of beak scratches, I barely needed to handle him anymore.

We knew then he was ready.