Kailey Woodbury was on her way back to work in Concord on Wednesday after grabbing lunch when something unusual caught her eye on the side of the road.
Not a deer. Definitely not a bear.
She took some photos, and the mystery animal became clear.
Standing near the shore of Penacook Lake was an emu — a tall, feathery, flightless bird, you’d usually expect to see in a zoo or a farm, not strutting along New Hampshire roads.
“It was a little surprising. I didn’t know what it was at first,” Woodbury said.
She found the bird hanging out on Lake View Drive around 12:45 p.m., looking entirely too comfortable in its surroundings.
The owner of the emu is still unknown. Authorities from the Concord Police Department said no one has reported an emu missing.
While not their normal missing animal post, Granite State Dog Recovery did alert its followers that the emu was spotted on the loose in Concord.
“Is anyone missing a emu?” the alert read.
This isn’t New Hampshire’s first encounter with a wandering emu. In 2015, Beatrice, a female emu, escaped from her home at Taft Hill Farm in Townshend, Vermont, and was spotted roaming the woods in Bow.
She was eventually captured and returned to her owner, but just a few weeks later, Beatrice made another daring escape. But her second adventure ended tragically when she was struck by a truck on a rural Vermont road. She was 24 years old.
For now, this emu in Concord enjoys its freedom, one strut at a time.