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Thanks Schorley

Cracked it now. Obvious in retrospect. Your hint much appreciated.

Has everyone managed to interpret the phrase "meeting its fate" in the preamble?

My interpretation, knowing that the creature is said by some to fly backwards, is that the highlighted path starts with the letter D and goes anticlockwise, spelling out the whole name of the creature .

Because of the underlap involving the last two letters, it can be seen to disappear up its own fundament, and that does also seem to describe the habitual flight path described in the 20 cell phrase .

Happy to be persuaded by any more elegant solutions out there :-)

Could be disappearing through the back DOOR?

If OO were the head, and RD were the rear, I would have thought that somehow including Os within one's depiction of the latter two letters would be the most thematically consistent. But I think there's ambiguity. I think the back DOOR idea is clever and could be defended, although the order of letters OR/OD doesn't quite work. I'm wondering if there might not have to be some grading leniency. Maybe the Os should be dropped altogether, assuming they wouldn't be visible in "real life".

This has been a slow fill for me as I found Colleague's excellent clues challenging. I still have three to do top right but will get there, I am sure. However, struggling with 23D where I have
?rd?is. Have I made a mistake?
The theme is still not ringing bells. I have researched some sit com's and carry on films with no success. It seems to be some bird that flies round in circles and goes up,its own rectum!

Rickye - 23D - your letters are correct - definition 'head kings once - word play 'drawer' in cockney slang for 'bottom' (bum).
As said earlier I only knew the flyer from a (very) early 70's C.O. film.

The comments have me wondering which way to complete this. Does the perpetrator BOTH go backwards and disappear or does it do either or? I have come to the conclusion that the inner is not meant to be a spiral, but it does go backwards with the last two letters disappearing up the first two. Perhaps they sit INSIDE one another? I like that idea....

I also wondered about the central 4 letters. If one of the Ls was an H, that might make it interesting (or more confusing). Or maybe, in line with 23, it could disappear up its own 'L 'OLE. But I'm not sure that is a real term!

rickye, your last sentence is entirely correct, and contains everything you need to solve this puzzle.

If you look at the eight extra words from the down clues, you will see that their lengths in clue order follows a distinct thematic sequence , and they can also all precede the same significant 6-letter word.

Regarding 23D, there is an Irish royal connection.

Finally, one of the main stars of the sit com used to be Good, but isn't so nice in this one.

Hope that gets your little grey cells firing....

Thanks friends. Revisiting with renewed vigour and enthusiasm.