Bill Bailey has told how he was once offered a live owl to eat in a Beijing restaurant.

The comic, and keen bird-watcher, was offered the chance to choose his dinner from the live fish and poultry on offer – but spotted an Eurasian Eagle Owl in one of the cages.

'I decided to liberate it,’ he told an audience at the Hay Festival, ‘so I told the waiter I wanted to eat first and then take the owl away for later. ‘He started conveying the owl to the kitchen but I said, "No, No, No - we buy owl to take away alive".

'It was a struggle in Mandarin but eventually he understood and they wrapped the poor bird's wings and feet in Sellotape and stuck it in a box marked "Suitable for microwave ovens.’

He took it from the restaurant, then released it with the aid of a Chinese taxi driver – again struggling with the language difficulty.

Bailey added: ‘There is no Chinese phrase book that gives you the words, "You hold the owl's feet while I cut the sellotape off with the nail scissors" but somehow I made him understand and we did release the owl.’