An owl has been stolen from the garden of a house in a Radnorshire village.

Dyfed-Powys Police is investigating the disappearance of Eurasian eagle owl Sox.

Owner Randal Carey, 66, fears the bird, which is the largest species of owl, was targeted after he and his partner Jacqui Kane, 64, moved to Llanfihangel-nant-Melan, near New Radnor, at the end of September.

Randal said as soon as the couple and their 18 birds, including Sox and other owls such as barn and tawny owls, moved in people realised they had a large collection of birds.

"Word got around so quick, within days, people knew who we were. Our garden runs parallel to the A44 and the pub, the Red Lion, runs alongside the whole of the garden. The birds weren’t something we could keep quiet about," said Randal.

"My dream when I moved here was to take her out on the hills and fly her back down into the back garden and have some fun with her, that’s not going to happen now."

Randal fed 14-month-old Sox at around 5.30pm on Monday, November 6 and discovered she’d disappeared when he went to release the birds from their sheds at 9am on Tuesday morning, November 7.

"The flight the bird was in still had its latch on and they’d shut the door and locked the flight as well. There was no way she could have got out.

"I was out at 5am this morning walking the hills looking for her and I’ve not even seen a feather. If a fox had her there would be feathers but I haven’t found a thing."

Sox is usually fed a diet of dead meat including day old chicks, beef, rats and mice and sometime rabbits but Randal said as she has been raised in captivity he fears wether she could hunt her own prey.

Retired falconer Randal, who has provided birds for film work and previously ran his own falconry centre, said a licence is required to keep eagle owls which would also need to be transferred between owners.

Jacqui said: "We can only presume somebody has come overnight and taken her. Whether it was somebody who wants to keep her, which they can’t really as you need a licence, or they’ve taken her to set her free we don’t know or whether she would be able to survive as she’s not a wild bird."

Anyone with information about the theft can contact Dyfed-Powys Police on 101.