A much-loved owl with a "big personality" who has been a hoot at Warwick Castle for three decades is winging his way into retirement. Ernie has been wowing audiences with his aerial antics around ...

An African Verreaux’s eagle owl with a wingspan of 165cm, Ernie has taken around 20,000 flights and most recently starred in The Falconer’s Quest, the UK’s largest bird of prey show.

The young hunter was stalking moose in a frigid Estonian forest when he found himself locked in the sights of another creature: a Ural owl. He looked into her ebony eyes and softly fringed ...