A Londoner has spoken of how he was seconds away from catching Jester the bird of prey that has escaped London Zoo.
The Crested Caracara has a 4ft wing span and is a variety of US falcon.
Jester had been sighted in South Ealing and Richmond after winging her way away from the zoo in Regent’s Park.
She finally landed 6.5miles away, as the falcon flies, in the grounds of The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in Putney, on Thursday.
Bird-lover Dac Fourie rushed to the grounds after his brother sent him a photo of the bird of prey strolling through the grass.
He told The Standard: “I was just one metre from her, I nearly pounced on her.
“I was thinking about it. I used to own a parrot.
“I just thought if I got it wrong I would mess up the only chance. Also she is designed to eat meat and since I’m mostly made up of meat it might’ve hurt a bit. She has pretty huge talons.”
He added: “I’m always up for an adventure. It seemed alright. It wasn’t too keen to fly it was very chilled. She wasn’t too bothered by people. It was only when too many people came to take photos that she flew up into a tree.
“She is a beautiful bird, I’ve never seen anything like it. She was a bit of a boss bird just chilling not too fazed. We offered her a little bit of meat to keep her near and she took it very calmly.”
He said a zookeeper turned up from London Zoo who was unsuccessful in his attempts to recapture Jester.
He added: “One guy from the Zoo came. He was on the phone a lot, probably to the zoo, trying to formulate a plan.
“He took over and I had to go to work.
“She is going to get hungry and come back down. If we feed her too much she will stay in the trees.” A London Zoo spokeswoman confirmed on Friday that Jester was still on the wing.
A spokesperson for The Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability told the Standard: “She was walking up and down one of our paths and across the lawn when we spotted her.
“She didn’t seem at all bothered about people coming close to have a look or photograph her.
“One of our staff informed the ZSL when they were forwarded a link to an article on the escaped Jester.”
They added: “She then perched up onto a tree and when the ZSL member arrived. He said her favourite food is snails and that she looked pretty full so he wasn’t convinced she’d be ready to come back to the zoo yet.”
Zookeepers want to coax Jester into a travel crate using her favourite food, quail and crickets.
She escaped by flying off over Regent’s Park during training last Tuesday after and is being missed by her brother, Joker, zookeepers said.
The Caracaras walk on the ground searching for prey but pose no threat to people or dogs, according to experts.
