The Mobile Mouse Trap.

When opening a medieval castle in the mornings, you never know what you may find. 9 am on Saturday 26th September looked like any other Saturday, ok , we were to have a wedding downstairs at 11am, other than that quite normal. With duster in hand I proceeded to climb the stairs to the six floors to open up. All rather mundane until I reached the third floor door, on opening it I discovered the biggest barn owl in flight I have ever seen. My first thought was how on earth did it get in, my second thought,and the most important one was, how am I going to get it out. I walked into the middle of the room with the owl flying round me. I was afraid he would be startled and fly into the stained glass windows but, he gave me one last glance and dissapeared through the open door I had just come through, and onto the spiral staircase. Experience told me that it was unlikely he would fly down wards, birds don't like to fly down stairs and tend to fly upwards toward the light. We have had peacocks climb the stairs before and found the easist and safest way to deal with them is to guide them to the top of the stairs and make them fly 100 feet off the top of the castle. I gingerly made my way up to the top, sure enough the owl was waiting there sat in a window, with a wire grill on to stop birds getting IN. I quickly opened the doors onto the battlements and the owl made his escape. We've never had to set any mouse traps in the castle before, but we never knew we had mobile mouse catchers before either. He/she was last seen flying for cover followed by a dozen rooks, so the danger wasn't over for him/her. It's another one to put onto my list, of visitors not having a entrance ticket. :(