Hannah Baillie never thought she’d become an owl expert but thanks to an unexpected close encounter about a week ago, she’s on the road to becoming one.
“What I’ve learned is that they are animal of prey, and they will attack you whether they mean to or not,” she said.
The avid runner was out on Halifax’s Chain of Lake trails at around dusk when she first spotted the barred owl swooping and landing in a tree. She even snapped a photo of the bird because she’d never seen one in the wild before.
But the owl then attacked her — not once, but twice.
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“It was about 30 minutes after I guess I felt something hit against the back of my head, sort of felt like someone that had really long nails was scraping them down the back of my scalp and then pulling on my ponytail at the same time,” …