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An animal charity flew into action at the weekend to help rescue three owls that found themselves stuck inside different homes.

Pat Kingsnorth, who runs Ark on the Edge in Durham, said she helped people free two tawny owls and one barn owl.

The birds were discovered in properties in Redcar, Northallerton and Barnard Castle.

The trick is to put on a pair of gardening gloves and then use an old T-shirt or towel, she said.

"Quietly put it over the bird, pick the bird up and take it outside," she said. "It'll fly away quite happily".

Ms Kingsnorth said this should be easy to do, but it took the man in Redcar about two hours to free a tawny owl.

The charity advised the caller on how to remove the bird over the phone.

"It went on for some time," Ms Kingsnorth said.

The next call came from a person in Northallerton who had found a barn owl in their fireplace.

"It'd obviously come down the chimney," she said.

The person had put a box in front of the fireplace to see whether it would go inside.

But Ms Kingsnorth said the bird was probably not going to do this out of its “own free will”.

She advised the same T-shirt and towel trick.

The third case involved a tawny owl trapped in a house in Barnard Castle.

The caller was easily able to remove the bird, said Ms Kingsnorth, again following her advice.

“Providing you go about these things in a quiet way and the bird isn’t upset too much – you don’t have a problem really,” she said.

There is no particularly reason why so many owls got stuck this weekend, she added. "It's just a coincidence."

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