Missing hawk reunited with owner after disappearing for EIGHT YEARS

A falconer has been reunited with his missing hawk nearly a decade after the bird went missing.

Ronnie the goshawk disappeared after being sent out to scare pigeons away in 2009.

Owner Darren Hart searched high and low for months, looking in nearby fields and listening out for bird calls that would help him find Ronnie but eventually gave up hope, fearing he was dead.

Until last week – eight years later – he received a call to say Ronnie, who is named after snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan, had been found.

Darren, 46, said “When I found out, I was on a high, I couldn’t believe it. I cannot believe after eight years he is back. I thought he had died.

“I found out at about 10.30 at night and couldn’t sleep, I was so excited that I was finally going to get my goshawk back.”

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Darren bought Ronnie from a breeder in Taunton, Somerset, when he was 10 weeks old and used him for pest control.

After he disappeared, Darren spent more than six weeks walking through fields looking and listening for him or for sounds from other wildlife that saw him as a predator.

When that didn’t work he hoped he could find him using a transmitter system he had used to train the goshawk to encourage him to return to him, but that didn’t work either.

Eventually Ronnie, from West Row, Suffolk, was found by a fellow bird breeder seven miles away from Darren’s home and recognised by a the unique number on the breeders ring on his leg.

Ronnie has now returned home where Darren is keeping a close eye on him.

He added: “You do get attached to them, with the amount of time you spend training them. They all have different characteristics and personalities, they’re like humans – every single bird is different.”