If you haven’t heard, last week (January 7), one airline company had an unexpected, non-paying passenger: a myna, and mind you, the bird wasn’t in the cargo hold with the rest of the pets that might be traveling on this particular flight. This avian creature was a discerning traveler because, it was found in the Business class. I kid you not. I guess, this is the future of bird migration?
Apparently, this feathery passenger was hiding away somewhere in the aircraft and did not emerged until 2 hours before the aircraft was scheduled to land in Heathrow Airport. It was not clear where it hid itself and why it only appeared after 12 hours into the flight. My guess is, it had enough rest and curiosity got better of it and it decided to venture out into the cabin to have a look around.
This bizarre event took place on Singapore Airlines in a 14-hour flight from Singapore to London. In a Facebook video (which appeared to have been removed at the time of this writing), a cabin crew can be seen trying to catch it, but fail to do so. However, the stowaway was eventually “apprehended” by the cabin crew with the help of some passengers.
The bird was handed over to animal quarantine authorities at London’s Heathrow Airport. Its fate is unknown at this point. We are not sure if this daring feathery stowaway will be repatriated to where it came from or adopted in the U.K. It is unclear how the bird managed to slip pass security checks and get onboard the aircraft, but we have no doubt it had gotten onboard back in Singapore’s Changi International Airport.
Perhaps it made it through when someone open one of the the jet bridge door, or it could be at the jet bridge chilling out when the bridge docked with the aircraft, and it conveniently slipped in when the aircraft’s door opened. Whatever it was, this starling just did a migration without flapping even one time. Good thinking, little fellow! OK. Myna don’t actually do long distance migration.
Anywho, for the uninitiated, Myna is a bird belong to the starling family (Strunidae) which is native to Southern Asia and boy, Singapore sure has no shortage of them.
Images: Facebook via BBC.
Source: BBC.
