Miaoli: A mountain scops owl recently flew into the Quan Hua Temple in rural Miaoli, delighting and then worrying staff as it remained perched on a Mazu statue’s head for two nights and three days, before departing late Monday.

According to Focus Taiwan, the Quan Hua Temple, located on Lion’s Head Mountain in Miaoli’s Nanzhuang Township, reported that a temple custodian noticed the owl perched on top of Mazu’s crown around 2 p.m. on Saturday. The temple staff decided not to disturb the owl, a protected species in Taiwan, assuming it would fly away within a few hours.

As of Monday afternoon, the owl remained in the temple for a third straight day, having only come down from Mazu’s crown to the area in front of the idol once, temple chairman Huang Chin-yuan told CNA. Although the bird was not trapped in the temple, staffers started to worry about its health, given how long it had gone without food.

Chang Wei, a section chief at the Miaoli Agricultural Department’s Wildlife and Nature Section, stated that owl
s can generally go several days without food or water before it adversely affects their health. He advised the temple’s management to turn off the lights and stay out of the shrine, hoping the owl would leave on its own in search of food.

Fortunately, this intervention was unnecessary. In a social media post Monday night, the temple announced the owl had flown out of the shrine at around 7 p.m., expressing hope for its safety. Temple chairman Huang mentioned that he had asked Mazu to look after the owl, suggesting that from the perspective of Buddhism and folk beliefs, the owl’s presence might have been for a special reason.