Mozart was not having a great time either. Having flown away from the dog on May Hill he flew through the top half of Newent woods until he could fly no more. It was hard for a large owl to fly through closely planted trees, so he landed rather un-gracefully in a larch tree and sat quietly recovering his nerves, his breath and his composure. This took a while. He could see car lights moving through the trees towards the pub, although he did not know anything about pubs. Once he thought he heard Jemima’s voice, but a car drove past at that moment and he failed to hear anymore. The woods were dark and the trees made creaking noises, which he was not used to. He was not a happy owl, nor an adventurous owl - he was a very lost owl and wished more than anything to be at home again, in his usual surroundings. The trouble was he had no idea which way home was. He was also getting hungry. Not dangerously so, because he was still pretty fat, but he really would have appreciated a good meal. So on he moved, driven by hunger and the desire to find home, the trouble was, sadly, he was going the wrong way.

By the time he had crossed the countryside to the more main roads it was the very early hours of the morning.

This was lucky as Mozart had no idea of the dangers of traffic and would not have known how to get out of the way. But that early in the morning and with the bad weather there was little traffic moving, so he crossed over without even realising the dangers. He covered a fair distance that night, moving quietly from one tree to the next, watching for anything that might be edible, slowly, without knowing it, getting further and further away from Newent, The International Centre for Birds of Prey, and home. He was not over keen on open fields, he felt very exposed as he flew across them. He would drop very low and glide silently just above the grass or plough both covered in snow, skimming the surface, the air under his wings serving as a cushion to keep him airborne with the least effort. This low slow flight kept him hidden from view from most other night creatures. He was much more relaxed in the wooded areas which were more his natural habitat. Although Mozart had been born in an aviary and hand-reared, still all his instincts were there, just dormant and unused, now as the need arose, his instincts were slowly but surely coming to the fore.

As the night ended and dawn approached he found himself in woods again. He had traveled about twelve miles and was now on the edges of an ancient and famous forest. He didn’t know it, but hundreds of years before the Royal Forest of Dean had been an area where Sparrowhawks and Goshawks were heavily protected by the King of England for his own use in falconry. What’s more, even if he had known, by this stage he certainly did not care. Caring or not, there he stopped, he moved from the edges of the wood to a more sheltered spot further in. Then he found a clearing so he perched very close to the trunk of a large oak facing the clearing, giving himself a good view of the surrounding area. Nothing moved. The intense cold and snow had caused most of Britain to grind to a halt, main roads were clear, but many of the side roads were still blocked. Had it been a normal winter, Mozart should have been spotted fairly quickly, as the Forest of Dean was a popular place for walking, especially around Christmas time. He would have seen people and probably called to them, then he would have been reported and Jemima would have found him. As it was no one was about unless they really had to be.

Christmas had come and gone, and although many people would be on holiday until after the New Year, they were tired of the snow by now, it had lost its magic and so they were spending their time indoors or at least away from the biting cold as much as they could. So Mozart was not seen, nor did he see any one, so he got more and more lost.

He sat in his tree not really doing much, or even keeping watch, just gazing vacantly into the distance with his eyes half closed. Eventually he woke up to the fact that he could hear a rustling sound close by in some dead bracken in the clearing. He focused his excellent sight and hearing towards the sound and stayed motionless. He heard the sounds again and the bracken moved a little, something was creeping around underneath the cover. He started to get excited. He had played this game before, sometimes Jemima had hidden the dummy bunny underneath things and pulled it slowly making strange movements before the bunny came into sight. He leant forward on his branch and as the noise and movement got closer to the edge of the cover he tensed himself, ready for anything.

But poor Mozart was by now so excited he just couldn’t wait until the rabbit or whatever it was appeared and was more easily caught. He dropped down onto the Bracken and grabbed with his huge feet at bunches of the undergrowth, he sat there gripping it tight and then started to pull the grass and bracken and dead leaves out of his feet - only to find - nothing. All that noise had been made by some sort of mouse which had slipped away. He was very disappointed and shook himself and returned to the tree. This time he concentrated and kept his ears and eyes alert for would be prey.

Back at the Centre Jemima was up early, livestock dealt with and she had printed out more of the leaflets to be delivered to the local pubs, hotels, shops and homes while searching for Mozart. The bird staff were in as soon as it was light and the birds fed and checked. All was well and the African Fish Eagles had finally laid their first egg. Adam, Holly, Simon and Mark then came in for a quick coffee and they made a plan of action for that day. Someone was always to stay at home near the phone in case of any sightings, and to keep an eye of things. They all had hand set radios and each had a mobile phone so the four of them took these so they could be in contact with Jemima and each other.

Jemima took the first stint at home because she wanted to phone the local radio, TV and Newspapers and they all knew her so she was more likely to get things moving. The four staff were going to take one of the vans, drive about four miles and then do a circuit slowly round each clump of woodland, dropping off the leaflets at houses passed on the way. They had falconry bags and meat and the binoculars at the ready. If there was a larger bit of woodland they were going to get out and walk it. But they were going to leave Newent woods until after lunch, it being the greatest area of woodland close by. Jemima got on the phone and called the Local Radio stations, they said they would be pleased to help, most of them had done interviews at one time or another with Jemima and they liked her and what the Centre did. Also there was little news around Christmas and this was a good story. The Newspapers were just as helpful, and were happy to print a story and offer the reward, putting in Jemima’s phone number for people to call in with information.

The local TV sent down a reporter, but he was a new one that Jemima had not met before and she took an instant dislike to the young man. His only interest in the story was whether or not Mozart was dangerous, would he attack adults, or children or their dogs and cats.

Was farm livestock safe? Jemima showed him Mozart’s dad and step mother who still lived at the Centre and tried her best not to lose her temper with the man, insisting that Mozart was not in the slightest bit dangerous to anyone, he was very tame was used to people, dogs, cats, ponies, chicken and the like and all she would like people to do was to give her or her staff a ring if they saw a very large owl. The reporter insisted on doing a piece by the sign with himself introducing the item and stating that a very large and potentially dangerous bird was on the loose. Say what she might Jemima could not persuade him otherwise and she did not want to be too aggressive with the man in case he did not use the piece in the early evening news. The phone rang and so she ran back in leaving the reporter with a hasty good-bye in case it was a sighting of the missing owl. It was not and Jemima walked sadly away from the office.

By this time it was close to lunch so she heated up some soup for everyone, had a walk round the Centre to check all was well and see if Mozart had by some miraculous chance come home, then laid the table for lunch. She saw the van arrive back just as she was walking back towards the house.

She went up to greet the staff, hoping they might have seen something - but no one had. They had a good response from the various pub and hotel owners as well as the private people when they had dropped off the leaflets, but no sign nor sight of the missing Mozart had they seen.

They switched on the TV at lunch time in case the news story had got there in time for an early showing, but there was little on except stories on the weather and forecasts of more snow to come. After lunch Simon did a stint and stayed home and Jemima, Holly, Adam and Mark with the dogs drove off to the edges of Newent woods. Mark and Holly took the lower side and Adam and Jemima took the upper side of the road. The dogs rootled through the undergrowth as she walked up one of the many tracks through the woods. They had planned to separate and meet at the clump of trees on the top of the hill, then returning down different tracks back at the van before dark. Through the woods there was little to be seen or heard. The dogs chased a rabbit but as usual were miles behind it, getting in one another’s way. They would dash off into the trees and every now and then come back to check that Jemima was still there.

Once up the steep sides of the hill and through the woods Jemima climbed a fence helping those dogs over who did not want to, or could not jump it and they all aimed through the gorse bushes towards the clump of Scots pines at the top of May Hill. As they walked through the bushes the dogs would check each one hoping for a rabbit. Jemima noticed that they were all very interested in one clump of gorse and would not leave it alone. She walked towards it, wondering what it could be that they were all so interested in. As she went two Ravens from the trees on top of the hill flew lazily by, cronking as they did and dropping lower over the bushes to see what was what. On reaching the gorse she could see that Sedge the terrier, and Acer being the smallest Labrador had got right inside the bush and the others were ranged around it sniffing and generally showing signs of interest. By this time Adam had arrived as well and asked what all the fuss was about. Jemima said she didn’t know but that the dogs would not seem to want to leave that particular bush alone. So they looked carefully all round the gorse, by the time all six dogs had been leaping round, there was little to see in the way of tracks. Adam got down on his hands and knees and peered into the centre of the bush on one side and Jemima did the same on the other, she could see something light coloured in the middle of the bush.

She reached forward which was not easy as the dogs were trying to be helpful and getting in the way and the bush was very prickly, she managed to reach in and grab hold of the object, it was a feather. On pulling it out she and Adam examined it carefully and they both of them knew instantly that it had come from Mozart - they were on the right track! And at least they thought they now knew roughly the direction that Mozart had taken.

By this time it was getting dark, the afternoon had gone and the threat of more snowfall was making the sky darker by the minute. As the snow started to fall they jubilantly made their way down through the wood, stumbling down the now fast disappearing track to the road and then to the Van. They had radioed on ahead to Mark and Holly, who had the engine going and the lights and more importantly the heater on. Mark had called Simon who had been phone sitting, to say they were on their way back. People and dogs all piled into the van and drove home through the swirling snow. Simon had fed the owls, checked all the birds, and put the various other livestock to bed by the time they got back, so there was nothing to do outside.

The lights from the house looked very welcoming as they pulled into the drive. The snow was starting to cover the road again so they all had a quick cup of tea and those who had to drive to get home left, promising to be there as early as possible again in the morning. Simon and Adam had been away, now back from seeing family over Christmas, lived in two flats on site so they both said goodnight and walked off through the Centre. Jemima fed the dogs and turned on the TV in time for the early evening news.

The item on Mozart had made it onto Midlands Today which pleased her immensely, what was not so good was the fact that the reporter seemed to delight in making Mozart out to be a dangerous bird. However Jemima just hoped that people would contact her if they had any sightings and forget the parts about Mozart being dangerous. She was just watching the weather when the phone rang, although normally at this time, the answer phone would have been on and only her private line would have accepted calls, if there was a lost bird the answer phone was left off so anyone could get through at anytime. The first call was from another reporter who wanted to know just how dangerous Mozart was.

Jemima reassured him telling him that the owl was not in the slightest bit dangerous, it was much more likely he would be very scared of people by this time, having been lost for nearly three days. The next call was a friend commiserating Mozart’s loss, as were several more calls. Jemima had not realised how many people cared about the Eagle Owl.

She probably never realised how many people’s lives he had touched over the years. It brought tears to her eyes as call after call wished her luck and promised to keep an eye out for the missing owl, and, yes of course, they would pass the word on that he was lost.

Then came a call that got her heart beating at double its normal speed. The man from Birmingham who had walked his dog on May hill late on Boxing Day had seen the news item, put two and two together and phoned Jemima to tell her of the very large and silent bird his dog had disturbed. Jemima excitedly told him about the feather she and her dogs had found in the gorse bush and as the two parts of the story came together they both knew that what he had seen was without doubt Mozart, he was able to confirm the direction he had taken as he flew off.

She thanked him profusely for taking the effort to call and promised to let him know what happened. By about 10pm the calls had ceased and Jemima and the dogs were able to relax a little in the study. She had lit the wood burning stove earlier and so she and Nettle, Indigo, Rush, Acer, Sedge and Sorrel sat down and finally stopped for the day. Jemima sat quietly on the floor, again with the curtains open and the music very quite in the background to make listening easier, and tried to read a book while the dogs lay either next to her by the fire, or on the sofa and chairs. Although the book was an old favourite, Jemima found it difficult to concentrate and spent more of that evening staring into the flames remembering than in reading her book.

Memories or no, tiredness was winning the day now and as the fire died down and the room started to get a little chilly Jemima got up, let the dogs out and went to bed, heartened at least to know that Mozart was OK on Boxing day afternoon and roughly in which direction to look the next day.