A barn owl chick found starving to death has been released back into the wild after being nursed to health.
Gamekeepers spotted the female owlet separated from her three siblings, sitting on a gate soaking wet.
The feathers of the rare species lack water resistance and can become waterlogged in heavy rain.
The owl was checked over by experts at Angus Falconry Services who said it had a minimal chance of survival due to dehydration and lack of food.
Starvation is the main killer of fledgling barn owls and 70% of the species that fledge in the UK die in the first year.
The chick was taken indoors and fed fluids throughout the night through a tube into its stomach and was given round-the-clock care for the first few days.
The emergency intervention helped save the bird's life and it is now well enough that gamekeepers have released it back on to the estate at Millden, Angus.
Upon release, the owl flew straight back to the steading where it had hatched and fledged.
Gamekeeper Jason Clamp said: "When we saw the young owl on the gate, its wings were down and we knew immediately something wasn't right.
"We had had a few nights of really heavy rain. Its downy feathers were all wet and the falconry experts said it looked as if we had caught it just in time.
"It felt really skinny and it didn't look well at all. We knew it needed help quickly or it would die."
Steve Towell, at Angus Falconry Services, said it was "great" to see the owl take flight.
He said "It was touch and go. These things don't always work. It had basically gone into shutdown. We managed to get some fluids in it quickly, using a substance which is like a bird form of glucose, then after a while got it on to a food that is like a pate with all the vitamins it needs.
"It had a few days on that and, when it took a mouse, we knew we had to get it back out into the wild fairly soon after.
"The longer they are housed, they lose hunting fitness, which can be just as dangerous."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article