A rare owl badly injured in a road accident has been given the gift of flight after a double wing transplant.

The injured Little Owl lost several of its vital flight feathers and others were damaged beyond repair. It would have perished in the wild.

A member of the public rescued the bird and took it to the Wildlife Aid Foundation, where vet Maru Urbina rebuilt both the owl’s wings by grafting donor flight feathers from a dead owl into the empty feather shafts.

The detailed procedure is known as imping and is rarely carried out on wild birds.