Bill Bailey recalls buying owl at restaurant in China and setting it free

Comedian and Strictly victor Bill Bailey has told however helium bought a caged owl from a edifice successful China and acceptable it escaped successful a forest.

Bailey, 59, has released a memoir titled My Animals, And Other Animals, a chronology of his beingness hinged astir each the animals helium has met on the way.

The instrumentalist and writer told BBC Breakfast: “We were travelling done China successful Guangdong state and we went to a restaurant, and I was with the family, and determination was an owl successful the restaurant.

“It was ne'er truly explicitly mentioned whether it was going to beryllium eaten oregon whether it was for, you know, demo purposes.

“It was successful a cage alongside a batch of different animals, and we felt atrocious for it. So we said, we person to get this owl retired of here. We offered to bargain it disconnected them, and past they were rather blessed to merchantability it to us.

“We bought the owl, and they taped it up and enactment it successful a box, and we carried it disconnected successful a taxi to merchandise it somewhere.”

After phoning an owl adept astatine London Zoo from China, Bailey said they recovered a forest, adding to BBC presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt: “We fto it spell and it flew off. It was a fantastic moment.”

In the book, Bailey says the owl was a pistillate Eurasian eagle-owl, and helium paid 400 yuan for it – which is conscionable implicit £40 today.

According to the Peregrine Fund, which works to conserve birds of prey worldwide, the Eurasian eagle-owl is “among the world’s largest owls”, portion its “pumpkin orangish eyes and feathery receptor tufts marque them 1 of the astir striking owls successful the world”.

Bailey became the oldest personage to triumph the Strictly Come Dancing glitterball trophy successful 2020 astatine the property of 55, partnered with Oti Mabuse.

Following the show, helium has presented TV programmes that see BBC amusement Extraordinary Portraits and the Sky Arts bid Bill Bailey’s Master Crafters: The Next Generation.

His erstwhile books see Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide To British Birds and Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide To Happiness.