Family surprised to find owl in their fireplace

A family in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were surprised when the fireplace of their new home was visited by an owl. Nicola Walker, 37, stumbled upon the feathered creature who had managed to drop in through her chimney. Nicola was confronted with the massive bird sat in the fireplace, looking at her from behind the glass. She said: “I was at home getting ready for bed and came downstairs and went into the living and looked at the fireplace and I thought I was seeing things as there was an owl behind the glass.



“It was just sitting there like an exhibit in a museum or something you would see in a taxidermist. I called my husband Ian and asked him if he saw it too, because it was not what you would expect to see on an evening. We rang the wildlife sanctuary and they told us to open the fire and don’t try and pull it out in case it was injured. It just went up into the bottom of the chimney, so we just left it until it came out itself. The next morning when we came down it was balancing on the ladders.





“The wildlife sanctuary advised us to get a blanket and cover it up, but it got a little panicky and moved over to the window as soon as I got close to it. I tried to cover it a couple of times, but couldn’t get the blanket over, but the third time I succeeded. As soon as the blanket was over it, it relaxed and we could put it in a box to take it out.” Nicola who moved into the house at the start of September with husband Ian, 37, said despite living near a wooded area didn’t think she would be invaded by the nocturnal hunter.


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She said: “When we moved in we didn’t think about getting a cowl on on top of the chimney but it is the next on my list of things to do.” Alex Farmer, who has run the Whitby Wildlife Sanctuary for the past six years, said: “I got a call at about 11pm to say that an owl had become stuck down the chimney. I said to Nicola not to move it and to open the door to the fireplace and keep all doors and windows shut and let it come out on its own. After she caught it, the owl was transferred over to us. He was just suffering from shock and we will keep him here for a couple of days to make sure he’s not suffering from anything else. We will then let him go close to where we found him as they are quite territorial.”