It cannot be denied that trees are the natural habitat of birds so they obviously have more right to use them.

But once you buy a Christmas tree and bring it to your lounge, a populated bird nest would be the last thing you’d expect to find in it.

This is exactly what happened to a 10-year-old girl from Georgia. The poor girl found an owl, yes, a living, breathing actual owl in her Christmas tree.

Little India Newman was noting all the brilliant features of the Christmas tree her family had bought for her when she was greeted by the bird.

Kate McBride, India’s mom, said her daughter ran crying out of the living room yelling at the top of her lungs: “Mama, that ornament scared me!”

Kate told CNN: “She comes very dramatically into the dining room and goes, ‘Mama, that ornament scared me,’ then she bursts into tears.”

Keeping in mind that Kate is a fan of owls and had a dozen of ornamental owls for the decoration of her Christmas tree, it was safe to assume that the little girl mistook one of the ornaments as a real owl.

However, when India’s owl-lover mom went to investigate the reality of the matter, she too was greeted by an actual owl who turned its face and stared back at her.

Kate added: “And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s a real owl.’”

The family had bought the tree a couple of days after Thanksgiving, the fourth Thursday of November. It was not possible that the owl had been in the tree all this time so they believed it must have flown in.

To make the owl fly away, the family left the doors and windows of the room open, hoping that it will eventually leave the place on its own.

However, the owl chose to stay and was right there in the tree the next morning.

At that point, the family realized that they needed to get help to make the owl leave their place. They reached out to an environmental organization in their area known as Chattahoochee Nature Center.

The staff from the center suggested the family feed the bird some raw chicken, suspecting that it might have been there for some days and would be hungry.

In the meantime, they sent a team over to the family to take care of the owl. They identified the bird as an Eastern Screech Owl, indigenous to the area.

Upon inspection, the team from the organization noted that the owl was thinner than it should be and was malnourished.

From its condition, they estimated that it had been in the tree since the family brought it indoors. They gave the bird some food supplements and took it away.

The owl was then left in a crate placed in a dark room. The door to the crate was opened at dusk on Saturday so that the bird could fly away – which it did eventually.

 

 

Replaced!