THE caring spirit of a Belstone resident has led to a tawny owl chick being reunited with its mother. On April 25, Chris Walpole found a baby tawny owl on the ground in his garden underneath a decaying but still upright pine tree. Presuming it had fallen out of the tree and abandoned by its parents, Chris initially decided to let nature take its course, and left the bird on the ground. However, he quickly had a change of heart, and put it back in the tree – ten feet up, in a wooden box. The following day, the owl had once again fallen out of the tree, and Chris climbed back up the tree to put the young owl back into its new home. Chris said: 'When I put it back in the box I was surprised to see a dead mouse there – the adults must have been feeding it. I also jammed in a "safety rail" bit of wood to stop the owl falling out again. 'On April 30, when I looked up at the box, the adult was inside with the youngster. The "safety rail" was back on the ground and the young bird was nuzzling into the sleepy adult with its back very close to the edge. I thought it quite likely it would fall out again, but no. In the afternoon, the adult had gone, off looking for food presumably.' Even the wooden box acting as a cosy nest for the owls has an interesting story behind it. Mr Walpole said: 'It was only after the box had been up there for a while that I realised what it said on the outside – Xmas Gift Handle with Care. The box came from Hong Kong in the 1970s. It contained stem ginger in Chinese jars that ICI sent to my stepfather as a gift every year after he retired from the company in that part of the world.'