A Singapore Barn Owl flew into a Sembawang Crescent flat this week, startling a mum and the family’s helper.
Luckily, the kids who live in the flat were already at school, since the residents described the owl as “very big” and added that the women had been frightened upon seeing it.
Good thing NParks was ready to rescue the majestic creature.
A man named Mr Balan, into whose 15th-storey flat at Sembawang Crescent the owl paid a visit, sent in a video of the incident to crowdsourced news site Stomp.
In it, a large white owl can be seen perched on the refrigerator, hopping once and looking around curiously many times.
Later in the video, a man in a green vest can be seen taping up a large brown box and donning long gloves.
When a woman’s voice is heard asking the man if he’s caught owls before, he says yes, adding he’d recently caught one “triple the size of this”.
“Oh my goodness,” the woman replies.
The NParks man then takes out a large folding net and what appears to be a towel or small cloth sheet.
He approaches the owl slowly and calmly and manages to get the net over it in one try.
The bird then struggles to escape, but the man turns the net over to make sure the owl is secure.
After that, he walks with the owl in the net to the cardboard box and gently places it inside, before proceeding to tape it shut.
The owl first entered the flat at 6:50 am, and by 8:30, the NParks man had gotten the job done.
“In Singapore, the species of barn owl we have is called the Western Barn Owl (Tyto alba). Since Singapore is an urban environment, they are more easily found in places like abandoned buildings and other man-made structures.
Though uncommon, from time to time, random owls have been reported by members of the public in unexpected places, including MRT and LRT stations,” writes nature photographer Francis Yap in his blog.
Such incidents, while rare, do happen. In 2013, a barn owl made a surprise visit to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s office.
“A beautiful barn owl had flown into the building overnight, and perched itself comfortably high up out of reach,” he wrote in a much-shared post.
Some netizens commented that owls flying into one’s residence means good luck is coming their way.
/TISG