LAST UPDATE | 10 Apr 2019
AN OWL WHICH went missing from its home in Co Kildare on Friday evening has been found and returned home.
Tank, the hand-reared owl, escaped from her enclosure last Friday night while being fed by one of the owners, Darren Jackson.
The owl became frightened when a cat jumped onto the wall of the garden. She flew over to the wall herself before flying into a row of nearby trees.
“We searched the field beside our house for a while but she was kind of gone in the opposite direction,” the other owner, Lezley De Loughry told RTÉ Radio One’s News at One.
This evening, Tank was spotted in a field in the Newbridge area, about a mile away from her home.
De Loughry and Jackson headed over to the site at around 6pm, where they found Tank up a tree.
They eventually got her down from the tree, but De Loughry told TheJournal.ie: “She wasn’t as hungry as we thought she was going to be, so it took a while.”
De Loughry had urged people not to try to pick Tank up if they find her because she might become frightened.
Tank has very strong talons De Loughry said, adding that the owl doesn’t eat or hunt animals.
She said that Tank is used to humans but she would have gotten scared around strangers. She said if someone tried to pick Tank up she would “get scared and she would flap”.
“Her wings themselves would give you a good slap across the head,” she told News at One.
She’s definitely not going to be swooping out of the sky picking up children or deers or anything like that.
De Loughry added that Tank has gotten out of her enclosure before, but had never gone very far.
Since Friday, there had been a number of sightings of Tank.
De Loughry told TheJournal.ie this evening: “She’s back home, she’s lock up and she’s safe.”
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