A Penrith man had a close encounter of the bird kind as he was walking the Ullswater Way on Tuesday.
Phil Mahon was well into his second and final day of hiking the 21-mile route when he reached the area between Wreay and Bennethead Banks, near Watermillock, and saw a large and colourful bird.
“I saw the bird fly across a field and it sat in a tree, making a real racket, with lots of squawking” said Phil.
“I started to take a video of it to see if a friend who knows a lot about birds could identify it,” he added. It was then that things took an even more unexpected turn, with the bird — which Phil estimates had a wingspan of at least two feet — swooping down at him, although it did not quite make contact.
“I had to duck back to avoid it — I wasn’t expecting it to do that and it was a bit of a shock,” he said.
Phil believes the bird might be an escaped domestic pet — perhaps a macaw — and added that he hopes its owner will now be able to recover it, knowing the area in which to start looking.
