£1k reward for pet eagle's safe return

Paul Davenport, 56, was training his pet African hawk eagle Shadow at Rossall in December when she pecked off the transmitter used to track her whereabouts and flew away.

Now he has offered a £1,000 reward to any person who can help him trace the rare bird and bring her back home.

He said: “She was soaring in the wind and it gave her the chance to bite off her transmitter.

“Once the transmitter comes off you have only got a small amount of time to catch her before she becomes wild.

“She’ll be totally wild by now.”

The African hawk eagle is a large bird of prey that is native to tropical Africa south of the Sahara desert.

In the wild, they feed on mainly guineafowl, as well as small mammals such as mongooses and rock badgers (a small rodent resembling a guinea pig).

While common in South Africa, the bird is rarely seen in the UK, with Paul estimating that one-year-old Shadow is one of just 30 of her kind in the country today.

The pest control worker, who has raised birds of prey for more than 30 years, said: “It’s very important to me that we get her back because she’s immensely valuable.

“You need to be constantly training with a bird like that, and she’s supposed to be put on a breeding programme.

“We have had some sightings and we have been tracking her but we need to find a way of trapping her.

“I saw her this weekend in the Hambleton area.

“With her being a hunting bird she gets her own food; she doesn’t need me to feed her.

“She’s easy to spot, people would definitely notice her. She’s much bigger than any bird living in the wild in Britain.”

Shadow is described as a medium-to-large sized bird with a dark brown back and a ginger breast.

Have you seen Shadow the African hawk eagle?

Call Paul on 07894 568 034.