For the Birds

We had some excitement a few Sundays ago.  We got home from church, fed the kids, put Piper down for a nap and then settled in for some quiet time.  Mark noticed a scratching/fluttering sound in the wall in the stairwell.  I thought mice but after listening longer you could totally tell it was a bird.  Yeah.  A bird.  Stupid animal.  All I could think of was dealing with the noise until it died and then the smell we’d have until we could somehow get it out of whatever pipe it fell into from the roof. 

I decided to check from the laundry room upstairs if I could place the noise.  Sure enough the bird was stuck in the dryer vent in the wall.  We turned the dryer on and the bird fell into the squishy tube thing you hook up from the dryer to the wall vent.  It was thrashing around and getting angry by now.  I ran and got two butterfly nets from the basement and Mark unhooked the dryer hose.  Out popped the bird into the flimsy butterfly net and as we tried to sandwich it between the two nets the bird got loose in the laundry room.  We hurried out and shut the door to make a new plan.

At this point Mark was ready to kill the dumb thing.  I’m sure he wanted to get his shotgun out and get rid of it.  Our next plan of attack was me going in there with the flimsy butterfly net and catching it and throwing it out the small window just down the hall from the laundry room.  I opened the door super slow, made eye contact with the bird, and he flew off behind the water heater.  So I go over there and can’t find the stupid thing.  Then I hear it above the water heater…in yet, another vent.  Grrr.  There is an open vent above the water heater to air out any gas fumes.  Now, I never took birds to be very bright, but this one was smart and dumb at the same time.  He thought he found another way out, but just ended up stuck in another vent. 

I closed the door and tried to come up with another plan of attack with Mark.  A few minutes later we heard him flying around knocking things over so I quickly open the door and get the net ready and he, even quicker, flies back into the vent above the water heater.  Stalemate.  But Mark comes through with a great plan.  We pin up a sheet to cover the bird’s access to the rest of the house.  This leaves the bird room only in the small hallway outside the laundry room.  We open the small window and take out the screen, leave the laundry room door open and the lights off.  It took only a minute or so for the bird to come out of the vent, fly over to the window, give a little chirp saying either “Thank you” or “Up yours” (we don’t speak bird) and then fly away.   I totally wished we had a camera crew to document the 30 minutes of drama.  Sadly, I don’t even have a single picture.