LISBON — A missing emu was found Friday down the road from its home at the the Rockin’ T Equine Sanctuary and Rescue on Edgecomb Road.

“I think he was headed back here,” sanctuary owner Janet Tuttle said Friday evening. “He was on our property behind a neighbor’s house. He wasn’t deep in the woods.”

She said the 19-year-old male, The Bird, was spotted laying down at the edge of the woods by a girl watering her grandfather’s garden.

The girl exclaimed, “‘Oh my God,'” when she saw the 5-foot 4-inch tall emu, Tuttle said.

Tuttle, her husband and a volunteer used rope and a sheet to capture The Bird, “picked him up and put him in a golf cart” and drove him to the sanctuary just down the road.

“He was glad,” Tuttle said. “I think he’s tired.”

Lisbon police, an animal control officer and volunteers searched the woods surrounding the 38-acre refuge after the emu wandered away Thursday.

Rockin’ T Equine Sanctuary received the emu  roughly a decade ago after it was found running loose.

Treyson Greene, 3, of Lisbon, who lives down the road from Rockin’ T Equine Sanctuary and Rescue watches an emu pace in his enclosure at the Lisbon facility Friday afternoon. The emu was captured down the road and returned Friday, a day after it escaped. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

Treyson Greene, 3, of Lisbon, who lives down the road from Rockin’ T Equine Sanctuary and Rescue watches an emu pace in his enclosure at the Lisbon facility Friday afternoon. The emu was captured down the road and returned Friday, a day after it escaped. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)

An emu named The Bird paces in its enclosure Friday after being on the lam the day before. It escaped from Rockin’ T Equine Sanctuary and Rescue in Lisbon. (Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal)