He doesn’t appear to give a hoot!

This is Oliver the owl who has amazed vets by surviving a 140-mile motorway journey clinging to the front of a lorry that had hit him.

It was two stunned long-distance drivers who walked into Idle Veterinary Centre last Friday clutching a box with a shaken, but not too ruffled, bird inside.

Head nurse Nicky Street said she could not believe her eyes when the drivers opened the lid and she saw what was inside.

“There he was looking very quiet, very wet and rather shocked,” she said.

The drivers told her they had hit something when they were near Cambridge, but were on the motorway so could not stop. They also thought whatever it was would be dead so kept going.

“They’d stopped at Bradford for a break, and that’s when they saw the owl stuck to the front grille,” said Nicky. “It had been holding on for dear life all that time with its talons.

“They managed to prise it off and get it into a box. Lucky for Oliver, they rang the RSPCA who told them we were the nearest vets, so they brought him straight to us.”

“He was really shivery after his experience, but we warmed him up, gave him fluids, antibiotics, loads of TLC and put him somewhere really quiet to rest. It’s amazing how he has recovered, he’s really bright now.

“We see all sort of animals injured after road accidents, but we’ve never come across a survival tale as extraordinary as this one.”

The only injury Oliver had was a cut above one of his eyes.

“He was so lucky. Owls depend on their perfect vision to survive, so we had to check his retina – they were both fine. If one of them had been damaged, we would have had to humanely put him to sleep,” she said.

Oliver, who is about 18 months old and believed to be a male, is due to be taken this week by the RSPCA to his new home at a falconry centre near Skipton.