Jacki Scallion awoke Monday morning like any other, only to find a very unusual visitor in her living room.
A great blue heron, probably an adolescent.
Somehow the bird had made its way into her apartment, five stories up in the West End.
"The herons don't ever fly around our buildings," says Scallion, who's lived in the apartment for a decade. "The fact he came here and then flew into my apartment, it's kind of crazy."
Scallion's building is a bit back from the beach and only a few blocks from the heron colony in Stanley Park, but the birds never come to her block.
A very flappy visitor
Often wild animals trapped in a human home will make quite a racket, either making noises or knocking things over, but in this case Scallion didn't hear the heron at all, until she saw it.
"I was shocked," she tells V.I.A. "At first I thought it was a goose because I see so many geese, and then quickly realized it was a blue heron."
Instead of panicking Scallion went and got dressed as she tried to figure out a plan of action.
"It went from shock to concern, and 'how do I help?' really quickly," says Scallion.
The balcony door had been left open overnight (which is often the case) and she figures the heron had come in sometime in the morning.
She came back to the living room and started recording the interaction while calmly encouraging the bird to find the correct opening in the glass door.
"I was trying to calm it down because it was just flying at the window," says Scallion.
In the video, the heron struggles to figure out the exit to freedom is inches to the right, so Scallion shows the bird the way herself, and throws a pillow through, to show where the glass door isn't.
"Look, this is outside. Look, see?" she says in the video.
Eventually, it figures out escape is to the left and quickly soars away.
While it probably felt like an eternity to the bird, the whole interaction only lasted a few minutes.
Afterwards, Scallion posted video of the interaction online. She notes some people have been critical of how she dealt with the wild animal in her home.
"I did the best I could," she says.
She notes that she zoomed the camera in for the video, and in fact, she was standing as far back she could for most of the encounter.
Other internet commenters have suggested a spiritual component to the heron's visit.
"I feel like there's some sort of message that I'm trying to figure out," says Scallion. "It feels more personal, the fact that it came into my apartment."
