Owl leaves artistic imprint on U.K. family’s window

A British woman passed her basement window recently to find she had missed a flying visitor: an owl had smacked into the glass, leaving behind a clear imprint of its body.

The Telegraph reported Lisa Loader in Bridport, Dorset thought she had certainly walked into the tragic scene of an own's death when she saw the detailed mark of its body, spread out wings and even its tail on her window.

The poor owl appears to have smooshed itself up against the window so closely it virtually left behind a signature to say it was there. However, Loader told the Telegraph she didn't find the bird's carcass anywhere near the window, and she hopes it was able to fly off alive.

[ Related: Barn owl flies off, takes a nap in church rafters with couple’s wedding rings ]

The imprint is from a natural residue on the owl's wings that occasionally leads to such photos of ghostly imprints, souvenirs from travelling birds who carried on with sore heads.

Several news outlets published a photo in 2011 of an owl imprint left on the window of a home in Kendal, U.K. that was so clear, experts were able to identify it as a tawny owl, according to the BBC.

"This would have been very uncomfortable for the bird but thankfully it looks like it survived," an expert at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds told the BBC at the time.

But many don't survive. Accurate numbers are tough to determine, but estimates put the number of birds killed by windows each year in the U.S. at upwards of 100 million.