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

Comedian and Strictly winner Bill Bailey has told how he bought a caged owl from a restaurant in China and set it free in a forest.

Bailey, 59, has released a memoir titled My Animals, And Other Animals, a chronology of his life hinged around all the animals he has met along the way.

The musician and author told BBC Breakfast: “We were travelling through China in Guangdong province and we went to a restaurant, and I was with the family, and there was an owl in the restaurant.

“It was never really explicitly mentioned whether it was going to be eaten or whether it was for, you know, demo purposes.

“It was in a cage alongside a lot of other animals, and we felt sorry for it. So we said, we have to get this owl out of here. We offered to buy it off them, and then they were quite happy to sell it to us.

“We bought the owl, and they taped it up and put it in a box, and we carried it off in a taxi to release it somewhere.”

After phoning an owl expert at London Zoo from China, Bailey said they found a forest, adding to BBC presenters Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt: “We let it go and it flew off. It was a wonderful moment.”

In the book, Bailey says the owl was a female Eurasian eagle-owl, and he paid 400 yuan for it – which is just over £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”, while its “pumpkin orange eyes and feathery ear tufts make them one of the most striking owls in the world”.

Bailey became the oldest celebrity to win the Strictly Come Dancing glitterball trophy in 2020 at the age of 55, partnered with Oti Mabuse.

Following the show, he has presented TV programmes that include BBC show Extraordinary Portraits and the Sky Arts series Bill Bailey’s Master Crafters: The Next Generation.

His previous books include Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide To British Birds and Bill Bailey’s Remarkable Guide To Happiness.