Its owner thinks Bertie is an incurable agoraphobic

Mar 5, 2014 19:26 GMT  ·  By

As surprising as this may sound, it seems that an owl currently living in Northumberland, UK, is an incurable agoraphobic.

The bird shares a house with its owner, 56-year-old Peter Middleton, who says that the domesticated owl is utterly terrified by the simple thought of having to fly outside the door and go about exploring the region. Daily Mail tells us that Bertie, as this owl is named, was rescued by Peter Middleton when it was still very young and in a fairly poor health condition.

Thus, the 56-year-old man, who runs a local charity that is in the business of looking after rescued owls, says that he found Bertie simply lying on the ground about three years ago.

Luckily for the agoraphobic bird, Peter decided to welcome it into his home, and the two have not been apart since then. In fact, it looks like they have become the best of friends.

“He arrived as a forlorn mud-covered chick with infection feet. He was in a very sorry state,” Bertie's owner recollects.

“He spent the first two months of his life being cared for by the vets. He was just a tiny tennis ball-sized piece of fluff,” he adds.

Peter Middleton says that Bertie very much enjoys hanging out with him, and even likes receiving visitors, who it usually greets with a hoot.

The 56-year-old man suspects that even if he were to try and release Bertie back into the wild, the bird would surely not manage to survive on its own.