Owl has hoot escaping on a cruise
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This burrowing owl sent animal experts on a frantic chase around a cruise ship
Animal experts in the USA have been left in a flap after an owl on a cruise ship repeatedly escaped from them.
The burrowing owl landed on the cruise ship and joined passengers for a two week trip around the Caribbean.
When the ship stopped in Florida, animal experts had an hour to capture it before the ship set sail again.
Despite it escaping, experts managed to capture it, look after it for a while and release it safely into the wild back on land - nowhere near any more cruise ships.
Despite seemingly not wanting to leave the cruise ship, the owl spent a lot of time perching on an exit sign
To capture the runaway owl (or should that be flapaway?) biologist Ricardo Zambrano was allowed on the ship with nets to try and catch the small owl.
Ricardo strung up nets near where the owl was perching hoping that it would fly into them but instead it swooped around them.
This happened twice before Ricardo tried a different method.
Some of the crew distracted the owl when it was on a railing while he sneaked around with a big net, and he safely caught it.
Burrowing Owl facts
These American owls live in burrows underground and have very long legs
They were nicknamed 'howdy birds' by cowboys because they look like they nod to say hello at the entrance of their burrows
In old stories it was thought snakes, dogs and owls lived together in burrows... sadly they don't
To try and meet a partner they fly vertically up and down to attract attention, and also clean each others feathers and feed each other
The owl looked shocked to be finally caught by wildlife experts
Because he'd been on the ship for two weeks the group took him to a wildlife centre to check he was ok.
Burrowing owls eat mostly insects and small rodents so he was a little underweight after spending time in on the ocean.
But once he was fed back to health by wildlife experts he was set free back into the wild.
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