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Falke behind the radiator grille: "All participants perplexed" looked at
Photo: Police Inspectorate Weiden / dpa
Bitch runs 440 kilometers from NRW to Hamburg
In February she tore herself away from her owner, just under three months later a bitch was found from near Cologne - in the far north.
Leya is said to have traveled a total of 440 kilometers from her home before she was recaptured near Hamburg in May and brought back to her owner.
The association Tiersuchhilfe Rhein-Sieg/Oberberg made the happy end of the animal trip to Germany public on Facebook.
The association had continuously documented Leya's sighting locations and supported the owner since the bitch escaped in Neunkirchen-Seelscheid near Cologne.
The club had reported several sightings of the bitch, for example near Olpe, in the greater Hanover area and near Hamburg-Finkenwerder.
However, attempts to capture Leya in the previous sightings have repeatedly failed.
Most recently, the animal apparently stayed in the south of Hamburg.
After a short stay at the animal center in Neu Wulmsturf, a member of the association finally picked up the bitch there and brought it back home.
Carrier pigeon accidentally crosses the Atlantic
It was supposed to be a race to northern England - and became an odyssey to the other side of the Atlantic.
A carrier pigeon named Bob took off from the Channel Island of Guernsey in June and was supposed to fly to Gateshead, a good 600 kilometers away, just before the Scottish border.
The flight was supposed to last ten hours.
But the four-year-old pigeon never got there.
Instead, a sign of life came from Monroe County in the US state of Alabama, almost 7000 kilometers from Gateshead: A pigeon had flown into an elderly man's house and could not be driven out.
When he noticed she was wearing a ring, he asked the local animal shelter for help.
An employee of the Monroe County Alabama Animal Shelters caught the pigeon, deciphered the numbers on the ring - and was amazed: she was able to identify a carrier pigeon association in northern England, the North of England Homing Union, as the owner.
The bird was therefore a little malnourished, but not injured.
A little later contact was made with the owner of the pigeon, Alan Todd.
But how did the bird get from the English Channel to the southern states?
"He can't have flown that far," the BBC quoted the pigeon's owner as saying.
He probably landed on a ship and sailed across the Atlantic.
"It was covered in oil - it may well have been on board an oil tanker."
Parrot drives away burglars with a friendly greeting
A parrot apparently put burglars to flight in Werne in Münsterland in July.
As reported by the Unna district police authority, the perpetrators had already smashed the door pane of a family home on Saturday night when something unexpected happened.
They appear "to have been disturbed by a parrot that can say 'hello' and 'well there,'" investigators reported.
According to the current state of the investigation, the perpetrators fled without loot.
Meanwhile, the occupant of the house was asleep.
The parrot also greeted the police officers who recorded the burglary the next day with "Hello" and "Hey there".
Giant tortoise disrupts rail traffic
A delay due to animals on the tracks is not uncommon for rail passengers - but what passengers saw in the UK in August was unusual.
According to the Greater Anglia railway company, rail services between Norwich and Stansted Airport near London were interrupted for more than an hour because of a "giant turtle".
"She's alive but injured," passenger Diane Akers tweeted, posting a picture of the animal, whose shell was apparently injured.
When the announcement "animals on the tracks" came, she looked out the window, Akers wrote.
"I couldn't believe my eyes!"
Another train passenger, Lydia Jane White, tweeted, "The train is delayed because a giant turtle too heavy to lift is stuck on the tracks." She never thought she'd hear that from a train driver .
According to the information, the turtle had escaped from a wildlife center in south-east England.
An account manager for the railway company later said the injured turtle had been taken to a specialist and would pull through.
Falcon survives collision with car - behind the radiator grille
A young falcon collided with a car in Bavaria in the summer.
The animal survived the incident relatively unscathed.
In the collision, the kestrel slipped behind the car's grille - and was then locked in there.
After it was discovered, the bird "looked at everyone involved in amazement from there," according to the police.
Those involved were therefore several police officers and workshop employees from the police station in Weiden in der Oberpfalz, who had asked the driver for help.
The specialist staff removed the radiator grille and was able to save the young falcon.
"The bird appeared to be doing relatively well," said a police spokesman.
Officials brought the animal to a sanctuary in Regenstauf in the Regensburg district.
Their leader said the male kestrel may have suffered shock and concussion.
Marten triggers a large-scale operation with a police helicopter
A marten on the wrong track led to a major police operation in Bavaria in the fall.
At night, an alarm was triggered on the roof of a discounter in Fürth, the police in Middle Franconia said.
Since the emergency services suspected a burglar, numerous patrols and even a police helicopter were reportedly deployed.
However, a closer inspection of the roof revealed that a marten wanted to enter the building, it said.
The animal caused the alarm.
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