A whopping two-and-a-half foot Eurasian eagle owl has attacked a runner, who claims the bird was trying to 'eat' her.
Like when a cruel crow soared down upon my small terrier as we were taking a morning stroll across the common, a woman was left petrified on her daily jog in Norwich.
Data scientist Hattie Atkinson Smith was running along the riverside, close to Norwich City's Carrow Road football stadium, at 6:10am when she thought she felt a 'hand' on the back of her head.
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Little did the 27-year-old know what she would be faced with when she turned around.
Turning back, Atkinson Smith came head-to-head with a 'massive bird', Mail Online reports.
The runner recalled: "My head was down, and I had my headphones in, and I was not really taking much in around me. Then I felt something on my head, and it felt like a hand that went down over my head.
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"I looked up and there was just this massive bird that had obviously come down. I think it thought I was an animal and tried to eat me - it was so weird! It was just so big - that was what was scary - and I've never seen a bird as big as that in the wild, not in a zoo!
"I sprinted away because I was obviously a bit scared it would try again. [...] My hair was up in a ponytail, so this is why I think it might have thought I was a rodent or something."
After getting a 'really good look at it', Atkinson Smith googled the bird.
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"I was sure it was a bird of prey as it was so big, and it had the hooked beak and stuff. Its feathers were two different shades of brown, and then it had these feathers above the eyes that kind of poked up."
Atkinson Smith noted how 'huge' the wingspan was of the bird. "I'd say the wingspan was coming up to as tall as me - it was really big. I'm 5ft 5," she explained.
The runner discovered that the bird was an Eurasian eagle owl with a wingspan totalling an impressive six feet.
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However, upon seeing that the eagle owl 'wasn't native to the UK,' Atkinson Smith 'googled Norwich eagle owl, and it came up with all these articles about it'.
From her search, the jogger discovered that the bird had been roaming Norwich for quite a while and had been spotted regularly by multiple residents, however, she hasn't reached out to its owners about the attack.
The owl, reportedly named Alfie, subsequently continues to fly freely around the city.
Poppy Bilderbeck