An elderly couple in the southern coastal town of Flekkefjord said they had the shock of their lives on Monday afternoon, when a fully grown grouse flying at apparently high speed crashed through their living room window. Astrid and Sigbjørn Egeland, both age 87, said they thought they were having an earthquake.
“There was a high, sharp sound and I ran to see what had happened,” Astrid Egeland told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK). “The room was full of glass and feathers. The window was in a thousand pieces, it was pulverized.”
And lying on the floor was a dead grouse (called a tiur in Norwegian), just below a badly dented door that it apparently crashed into. Fortunately Astrid and her husband Sigbjørn were reading in another room of their home and weren’t injured.
For photos, click to NRK’s coverage here (external link, in Norwegian).
“I sat and read a newspaper and the whole house shook, pictures fell down from the walls,” Sigbjørn Egeland told NRK. “I thought we were having an earthquake.”
The bird’s speed must have been very high in order for it to break through the Egeland’s double-paned thermal window. “You can just imagine the power the bird had, it was like a projectile weighing five kilos that came through the window at a speed of 100 kilometers an hour,” Sigbjørn Egeland told NRK.
They were still sweeping up glass on Tuesday and clearly shaken after the highly unusual incident. Sigbjørn Egeland, however, was considering roasting the grouse for Sunday dinner.
newsinenglish.no staff
