Owls are carnivorous predators which are not known for their friendliness towards other birds, especially if they are small and easy to hunt down and eat.
But a screech owl is making headlines across the world after it hatched a duck egg and raised a duckling for several days in Jupiter, Florida.
Wildlife photographer Laurie Wolf caught the mindblowing sight in her backyard where she has installed several nesting boxes.
One day, she saw a duck removing an egg from one of the nesting boxes and moving it to another. The duck then disappeared into a pond next door.
“We believe that the duck moved the egg because that nest had been raided – there were eggshells at the bottom of the pine tree where the box is”, she told.
Days later, Wolf saw a screech owl move into the nesting box where the egg had been moved. Few weeks later, a duckling appeared in the box. Wolf said: “Seeing the owl with the duckling was honestly the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my life! It’s still hard to believe.”
But when the trance of the lovely and heartwarming sight receded a bit, Wolf was overcome by the fears that owl, a predator in nature, may kill the duckling.
So she reached out to a local wildlife expert who told Wolf that they’d take care of the duckling if Wolf managed to catch her.
However, when she and her husband tried to catch the duckling, it flew off to their neighbour’s pond. She says they haven’t seen the duckling since then.
Wolf says the few days the owl and the duckling lived together in her backyard have turned into a lifetime memory.
