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On-the-run chicken causing cross-town cluckus

Katie Thomas A chicken, with a reddish head, brown crest and neck and lighter, mottled body with black feathers on her tail. She is standing a car park grey pavement in front of a blue people carrier car Katie Thomas
Have you seen this chicken, last spotted in a supermarket car park?

A chicken has been seen scratching around on the forecourt of a supermarket petrol station for at least a week-and-a half, causing a social media stir in a Welsh town.

Regular sightings of the bird have been reported at Morrisons in Aberystwyth, Ceredigion.

Ems Hanley - who does wildlife rehabilitations in the town - helped form what she is calling a chicken rescue team.

"A witness said she saw a chicken jump from one of the battery lorries, so we have kind of an idea where [it] came from," she said.

It is understood the chicken made a bid for freedom while the lorry she was in had stopped for fuel.

"According to the manager of the petrol station she's been there coming up on three weeks now," she told the BBC Radio Wales Phone In.

Ms Hanley also said it could also be more than one chicken that is being spotted.

"There are supposedly three," she said of the latest theory in social media comments.

"We've seen pictures that look like at least two chickens," she explained. "We've not seen pictures of a third chicken."

Ems Hanley A brownish chick standing on grey pavement beside a blue car in the picture on the left. A thick bushy area beside a car park pavement with two orange and white pylons near the curbEms Hanley
The chicken, or chickens, are thought to be hiding in a some greenery next to the petrol station forecourt

"Unfortunately they are terrified of people," she said, adding how they seem to be a green area adjoining the forecourt carpark, hidden in what she called "thick privet hedges".

Ms Hanley said her team was waiting to get technical help with a thermal scanner in the hopes of searching the thicket on Thursday night.

It comes after the team set up an upturned crate, held up at one end by a stick attached to a trigger string.

But the chicken, or chickens, have so far not let themselves get penned in again.

"We nearly got her in and then a group of people walked past," she lamented.

Another team member crawled into the hedges and had a chicken in his sights, but just out of reach, she said.

"It is the quickest chicken I have seen in my life, no exaggeration."