The sun was shining, and after two-and-a-half hours of delight, watching the Shakespeare’s Globe production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Old Schools Quadrangle at the Bodleian, I decided to pedal the long way — not to say the wrong way — home.

Crossing Donnington Bridge, which you will agree is way off the route for Osney, I was pleased to be greeted by old friends Sue and Mark Gonnella, who were out walking their little dog.

At first I didn’t see there was another animal close to them. Mark needed to direct my attention to the handsome falcon, perched on the eastern balustrade of the bridge.

That’s him (or as likely her, but let’s stick with him) pictured above, in a photograph taken with Sue’s mobile phone.

His grey and cream plumage made him a very good-looking boy indeed. We noted that his position afforded him a bird’s eye view of the Falcon Rowing Club, 20 years upstream.

Perhaps it was the appropriateness of the location that had drawn him to it. Some of the small crowd of admirers (I suddenly noticed them too!) said he had been there quite a time. One of the people had seen him on the bridge the day before as well.

But what was to be done about him? Clearly he was not a wild bird. The leather jess dangling from his leg revealed him to have been involved in the sport of falconry.

Who should we summon to help him? The police? The RSPCA? The RSPB?

After some minutes considering the options, I had a sudden brainwave. Some years ago, as guests of owners Anthony and Peta Lloyd, I spent a fascinating hour or so at the Fallowfields Country House Hotel at Southmoor, watching a display of falconry laid on by their resident expert, James Channon. He’d be the ideal person to advise on the matter, I said.

A phone call to the hotel rapidly secured me James’s number — and, by the by, dished the notion, suggested by Sue, that our bird might have been an escapee from Saturday’s Thame Show. No — Anthony had been there, he told me, and, like Brian Hanrahan, reporting from the Falklands, he had “counted them all out and counted them all in”.

While we chatted, Mark called James. He not only knew what to do, but offered to come himself and do it.

Twenty minutes later he was with us and, within seconds, had performed as neatly managed an ‘arrest’ of the bird as you can imagine.

“I’m going to take him by surprise,” he told us as he crept up behind the falcon which was by now facing towards Iffley. His gloved hand held a dead chick.

Suddenly aware of James’s presence, the bird turned, saw the chick and leaned forward to grab it. At this point his leg was firmly seized by James. Comfortably seated on his captor’s hand, he continued to enjoy what was clearly a much-needed meal.

To my untrained eye, it looked rather as if he had wanted to be caught. It must have been rather frightening, even for a bird of his size, to be away from home alone.

“His presence was certainly exciting seagulls in the area, some of whom might have tried to mob him.

James told me: “I was surprised that I caught him so easily. He could have flown off, but I had a lure that I could swing around to bring him back.”

The bird, which James judges to be a gyr falcon crossed with a saker, has been taken into temporary custody with the other 30 feathered friends at Fallowfields.

Efforts to locate his owner are being made through the Independent Bird Register. If these fail, he is welcome to take up permanent residence at the hotel.

James said: “He is a lovely bird — quite well-mannered and probably two to three years old. It’s hard to tell.”

For more information on James’s activities, go to www.fallowfieldsfalconry.co.uk