Long-missing Rainbow Valley owl returned to her rightful owners
CBC
A robotic owl that went missing from P.E.I.'s Rainbow Valley theme park 22 years ago has been returned to its rightful owners.
John Davison and his parents, Earl and Irene, say this summer's show of P.E.I. tourism memorabilia at the Confederation Centre of the Arts likely prompted the bird's return.
"Probably it jogged somebody's memory that maybe out in the shed underneath a tarp, they had an owl that had been roosting out there for some number of years, and thought it would be a good time to send her home," said John Davison.
Mrs. Henrietta Sleepy Owl, as she is known to Rainbow Valley fans, was reported missing in July 2000.
Staff of the Cavendish theme park co-founded by Earl Davison learned of the bird's absence from children alarmed to see only an empty pedestal inside the fibreglass tree in which the talking robotic owl had perched.
The missing owl was quickly replaced by a non-robotic stand-in, but the original owl's whereabouts remained a mystery.
Until last month.
Davison told CBC News a cardboard box turned up in the driveway of a former employee at the end of August. That employee contacted John Davison to say there was an owl inside.
The box also contained a handwritten note, addressed to Earl Davison, ostensibly written in the owl's own hand.
"Dear Earl: Over 20 years ago I flew the coop," the note began. It went on to say the bird had been to the mainland and back, and "it is time for me to come back and see all my fans once again. Let my return be a symbol of peace, love, unity and respect — in a time we could all use it."
"Looks like her handwriting," said John Davison, playing along with the ruse.
But the bird in the box is definitely the original.
Its hinged beak and rotating head still move freely. Coated with hand-painted feathers cut from canvas, the fibreglass body encloses the robot's inner workings, pistons and wires.
Earl Davison, now 86, designed and build the bird in his workshop of the grounds of Rainbow Valley around 1990 or so, he estimates.
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