Gary Willders spotted the big bird at about 1 p.m. Monday, an emu standing in the front yard of his home off Lewisberry Road outside Dover.

The bird wandered around his yard and then walked off toward a neighbor’s place, venturing into a pasture and spooking the horses residing there. “The horses were scared of him,” Willders said.

The emu crossed the road to the Lunko’s place, where MacLean Lunko was out working in the yard. The bird followed Lunko as he tried to walk, nonchalantly, away from it. The bird followed him, “like a dog,” Willders said. Lunko kept walking. The bird kept following him.

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Lunko wasn’t exactly frightened of the big bird, about the size of a pre-teen child – they can weigh as much as 80 pounds – but he was being cautious. “I didn’t know what he was going to do,” Lunko said. “I was a bit nervous. I didn’t want to startle the thing. I didn’t feel threatened by it. But I didn’t want to make any sudden movements.”

The bird crossed Lewisberry Road, where another neighbor had dogs out in the yard, kept penned in by an invisible fence. The bird lunged at the dogs, causing them to scramble onto the porch, where they stayed while the bird wandered around the yard, Willders said. “The dogs were petrified. It was pretty amusing.”

Emus aren’t indigenous to northern York County – the flightless birds, second only in size to ostriches, are native to Australia but have been imported to the United States as livestock – but the sight of one in these parts is not unusual.

Willders and other neighbors have spotted emus wandering around the neighborhood before. A woman who lives nearby – who Willders and others know as “the mountain lady” - keeps emus, and sometimes one of her flock escapes the pen and goes on a walkabout around the countryside.

Still, the emu was attracting attention, and wandering onto Lewisberry Road, tying up traffic, so Willders’ son called the police.

When Northern York County Regional Police arrived, the emu was still in the area. The police officer learned that the woman who lived nearby on Buck Road kept emus and got in touch with her. She drove over and said the bird wasn’t one of her emus, that all of her birds were accounted for, and besides, it didn’t look like one of hers, dispelling the notion that they all look alike.

Willders and the others tried to corral the bird, and they were successful. Willders caught it by one of its wings. The police officer grabbed its other wing, and the mountain lady got it in a headlock. She assured the others that the bird wouldn’t try to peck their eyeballs out.

The three lifted the bird onto the tailgate of the mountain lady’s pickup truck for transport back to her place, where she could place it in safekeeping with her flock while the rightful owner was located.

The bird had other ideas.

As Lt. Gregg Anderson of the regional police said, “He wasn’t having anything to do with it.”

The bird wrested free of its captors’ grip, jumped off the tailgate and scampered away. Willders said, “The daggone thing was strong. It was quite powerful.”

Feathers were everywhere, he said. “I couldn’t believe how fast it could run,” he said. “He was feisty.”

Later, Willders said he spoke to a guy who runs a wildlife control company who told him that emus are so strong that you need four or five people to apprehend one.

Soon, the emu was walking up the middle of Lewisberry Road. It would strut up the road for a piece and then turn around and scurry back.

Traffic came to a standstill as the emu took over the country byway.

Neighbors said they believe the bird has been hanging around the area for a year or so. Another neighbor who raised deer had an emu in the pen with the deer, and when that neighbor moved away, the emu began making appearances in the area around Lewisberry Road from Jug and Buck roads and around Steffee’s Corner.

“I guess they just left it behind,” Willders said. “That’s my thought, but I don’t know.”

The emu disappeared into the woods by Jug Road. That was the last the bird was seen.

Northern Regional police would like to locate the bird’s owner. If anyone has any leads, they can call the police at 717-292-3647.

Meanwhile, the emu remains on the loose.

“This is life out on the country,” Lunko said.