A large Buzzard almost cooked his goose when he flew into the path of an oncoming car and got entangled behind the vehicle’s grill.

The incident happened over the weekend on a main road near Halwell, south of Totnes.

The buzzard, an adult male, survived the impact but was firmly wedged inside the grill and unable to escape.

To add to the bird’s woes, the driver of the vehicle who saw it fly across mistakenly thought it had ended up in a hedge, unaware that the bird was in fact stuck beside the hot engine bay.

He then drove all the way to Dartmoor and back, unaware he had a very distraught passenger on board. It was only when he parked his car in front of his house and saw a sharp claw emerge from the back of the grill that he realised what had happened.

He contacted Jenny Rogers, the manager of the Ash Rescue Centre in Dartmouth. However, on seeing the bird’s predicament, she quickly decided a different set of skills were needed to release the bird from his motorised cage.

“We couldn’t get the grill off, so I put up a plea on Facebook to see if there were any mechanics around to help,” she said.

Two local mechanics, Dave Diston and Aidan Lawrence, answered the call and between them and Ms Rogers, they were able to free the bemused buzzard after about an hour.

“They almost had to remove the front of the car to get to him. He was quite dehydrated and he couldn’t move,” she said.

Fortunately, aside from a few ruffled feathers and a dented pride, he was in remarkably good shape and did not have any broken bones or other wounds.

Ms Rogers added: “He’s doing really well. We kept him in a smaller cage on Sunday night to rest, and this morning I put him in the aviary to check his wings. He’s flying around and eating really well.”

The buzzard is due to be released in the next couple of days.