A mountain scops owl recently flew into a temple in rural Miaoli County, delighting and then worrying staff as it remained perched on a Matsu statue's head for two nights and three days, before departing late yesterday.
A temple custodian noticed the owl perched on top of Matsu's crown at about 2pm on Saturday, said the Quan Hua Temple, which is located on Lion's Head Mountain (獅頭山) in Miaoli's Nanjhuang Township (南庄).
Temple staff did not disturb the owl, a protected species in Taiwan, as they thought it would fly away within a few hours, the temple said.
Photo courtesy of the Quan Hua Temple
However, as of yesterday afternoon, the owl remained in the temple, having only come down from Matsu's crown to the area in front of the idol once, temple chairman Huang Chin-yuan (黃錦源) said.
Although the bird was not trapped in the temple — the Matsu idol has a glass pane in front of it, but is open on both sides — staffers began to worry about its health, given how long it had gone without food, Huang said.
Owls can generally go several days without food or water before it starts to adversely affect their health, said Chang Wei (張葦), a section chief at the Miaoli County Agricultural Department's Wildlife and Nature Section.
He said that he asked the temple's management to turn off the lights and stay out of the shrine, so that the owl could leave on its own in search of food.
If that had not worked and the owl had not left the temple by today, wildlife officials would have considered trapping it so that it could be released in the wild, Chang said.
However, that was not necessary.
Last night, the temple wrote on social media that the owl had flown out of the shrine at about 7pm.
“Two days without eating, we hope it's safe,” the temple said.
Huang said he had asked Matsu to look after the owl.
From the perspective of Buddhism and folk beliefs, temples are places of purity, and the owl must have come for a special reason, he said.
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