Patti LeConte and her husband were driving home from Ocean City on New Year’s morning when they saw traffic slowing near Hebron in Wicomico County.

As they got closer, the Ellicott City couple realized the reason why: A 6-foot-tall bird was loping down Route 50.

“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?” LeConte, a yoga instructor, recalled thinking.

She was.

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A spokesman for the Maryland State Police confirmed that troopers were called to the intersection of Rockawalkin Road and Route 50 Wednesday morning to try to trap an emu.

The bird’s owner was there and seemed to have the bird under control, said State Police Sgt. DelVecchio, who declined to divulge his first name. But then the emu took off again.

“So I guess it’s on the loose,” DelVecchio said.

The Eastern Shore Undercover Facebook page reported that the bird was spotted Thursday morning a few miles away in Mardela Springs, much to the delight of commenters who cracked jokes about LiMu the Emu from Liberty Mutual’s ads.

DelVecchio did not know the name of the owner of the emu and several other local emu keepers also did not know to whom it belonged.

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“Mine are all accounted for,” said Carolyn Palo of Pine Hill Farms in Newark, Delaware.

“It’s not ours,” said Peggy Royer of the Old Orchard Emu farm in Sabillasville in Frederick County.

Royer said emus, which are native to Australia, don’t seem to mind the cold. The birds, which are related to ostriches, grow as tall as 6 feet. They can run about 30 miles per hour, Royer said.

Royer, who has tended emus for more than 30 years, said the best way to capture an emu is to throw a bag over its head. “You don’t want to get in front of them,” she said. “They can really kick and scratch with those claws.”

These days, Royer only has four elderly emus at her farm, but in the past she tended about four dozen. Once, a herd of deer broke some fencing, freeing three of the birds. Two were easy to lure back, but the third gave chase down a Western Maryland highway, leading to reports of a “giant turkey” on the loose before he was recaptured, she said.

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Royer said she knew of quite a few people on the Eastern Shore who keep emus. “There are more emus in Maryland than you can imagine,” she said.

As for LeConte, she was still chuckling Thursday over spotting the bird on the highway.

“That must have been a hell of a New Year’s Eve on the farm this year,” she said.