AN osprey which was has been painstakingly nursed back to health after being shot has been released back into the wild in the Romsey area.

His release coincided with a £250 reward being offered for information on his shooting.

He was found at Alderbury with a large ball-bearing - probably fired from a shotgun - embedded in his left wing. As a police inquiry got under way, the bird, nicknamed Ossie, was taken to the Hawk Conse-rvancy Trust at Weyhill, near And-over and chief executive Ashley Smith recalled: "He was in a poor condition, was quite thin and didn't eat for 11 days. Eventually he did start to eat fish and when he started to eat for himself, he enjoyed brown trout. "He has now built himself up with a good layer of fat."

Mr Smith said the trust's vet John Chitty discovered the shotgun slug when he x-rayed Ossie. "He decided to leave it in because he didn't want to be invasive and it wasn't harming the bird."

And when Ossie was taken to a secret location on Tuesday and freed into the wild, there were no tell-tale signs of any injury.

Conservancy curator Andrew Hinton, who released him, said: "It was a wonderful feeling.

"He came from the wild, he belongs in the wild. We did everything to the best of our ability to get him back into the wild and now he looks so strong."

And Mr Smith added: "When he's in an aviary you can't be sure how well he will fly and there have been occasions when I have released birds, they haven't looked too good and I've decided the only thing to do is get them back.

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