For someone who once boasted about biting the head off a bat during a live performance, this must be a moment of bitter, bitter irony. It seems Ozzy Osbourne's plan to convert a barn on his Buckinghamshire, England estate into a two-bedroom apartment has been thwarted -- over a worry about local bats and owls.

Turns out, "considerable evidence" of bats and owls has been found there, according to a BBC report, and Osbourne is now being required to take appropriate measures in order to save the animals. All species of bat are protected in the U.K. under the Wildlife and Countryside Act, the BBC says, as well as the Conservation of Habitats and Species Regulations.

Osbourne's main estate at Buckinghamshire has been ruined by one of the wettest winters on record. He's staying in Los Angeles while the home dries out ahead of some £300,000 in proposed repairs.

Meanwhile, interim surveys submitted to the Chiltern District Council of Osbourne's Stone Dean Farm found droppings and feeding remains of what were "possibly brown long-eared" bats -- as well as the roosts of common and soprano pipistrelles. Any conversion work would have a direct impact on the creatures, the council decided. Two additional surveys will be made between May and August, presumably to see if the animals have left.

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