The finished product! This took me about 3 months total to create, it ended up being a much larger undertaking than I initially thought, but I think his look is really unique.

The first steps were to crochet the base. I crafted the body first, and made the neck drastically smaller to give him a separate head shape. I crocheted a beak, wings, and a tail & attached them.

This was midway through adding the "feathers". Each string is laced through and double-knotted so it will stay on. There are some spots of varying colors that are hard to see because the strands are so long.

The pictures on the left is before he was stuffed. The strings gave him a lot of volume and shape, but he collapsed if he was squished! His eyes are crocheted turquoise circles of yarn with black buttons sewn on.
The pictures on the right is after he was stuffed and his head was sealed shut. Thomas wasn't too sure of him at this point, he looked like a balding old owl!

I finished adding all of the hair on top of his head, and added a few strands of gray to give his body some texture. The final step was to give him a haircut so he could look more handsome and less uneven.

Here he is post-haircut!  I felt that something was missing, so I made a friendship-bracelet scarf for him. The scarf gives him a pop of color and helps shape his head a bit further.