WE HAD TO WING IT

Our goal is to try and accomplish something each day. Of course, you don't always get to choose what that thing is.

This morning, for example, The Wife was in the living room feeding our little boy when she heard a strange noise outside our window. She thought it was a couple of squirrels running on the roof. Turns out it was a small bird that had found its way into our chimney. With some heavy duty fluttering and flapping sounds, the bird fell down into our fireplace. Fortunately, the glass doors to the fireplace were closed.

The Wife called me downstairs and calmly (well, somewhat calmly) explained that there was something that needed to be removed from the fireplace.

The wayward bird,
behind the fireplace door.

I had my assignment: Get that thing out of the house!

Let me first say that The Wife is typically the brave one in the home. Bee whizzing by? She'll cup it in her hands and bring it a safe distance away. Spider climbing on the wall? She doesn't smother it in a tissue and flush it down the toilet. Nope. She gently gathers it in and then escorts it outside.

What we learned today is that birds are a different story. Birds, it seems, give The Wife the heebie jeebies. Birds cause The Wife to dance lightly on her toes as though she is walking on hot coals. Birds cause The Wife to make noises that are hard to transcribe but we'll try. It would read something like: "Uhhnnnnnuunnnnhuuhuhuh!!!!!"


If you watch Modern Family, you'll understand why The Wife earned the nickname Mitchell today.

We called animal control as well as a local wildlife rehabilitation center to see if there was an expert who could help remove our visitor. Both places gave us advice for extracting the bird and wished us well with the task. No help was coming.

The tools for today's mission.

We were on our own.

So we set about Operation Bird Drop-In first by gathering whatever tools we might be able to use. A plastic sheet, a bucket to catch the bird, a towel, some gloves and a plastic tray to use as a cover once we caught the bird (yeah, right).

First, The Wife taped the plastic sheet over the fireplace. That way, if the bird got by me (which it eventually did), the sheet would keep it contained to the fireplace (which it did not).

Talking to the bird didn't 

exactly help the situation.

With the sheet in place, I crawled underneath and got an up-close look at the bird through the fireplace door. As we stared at each other, the bird's beak looked awfully long and sharp for a little thing. It looked nervous, which is understandable. Imagine one minute you are flying around, enjoying the cool, bright autumn air, and then the next you fall down a dark, enclosed space that you can't get out of.

I tried talking to the bird, explaining that I was only trying to help it get out. The bird responded by wildly flapping its wings and slamming into three walls of the chimney. Wearing gloves and holding an old towel for added padding, I reached into the chimney toward the bird. It tried its damnedest to get away, flapping halfway up the chimney.

Things were silent for several moments, and we thought perhaps the bird made it to the top and back out the chimney. We shined a flashlight up to see, and suddenly the bird plopped back down to the bottom. Don't tell The Wife, but had I not been in a tight, cramped space, she would have seen me jump a country mile.

The bird was cowering in the corner of the fireplace, so I took a different approach and tried tossing the blanket onto the little guy. That part worked, and I could see that the bird was trapped between the fireplace window and the towel.

Sweet. We were almost there. All I had to do was gently grab the bird, making sure to secure the wings so it couldn't flap out of my hands.

That part was not so successful.

As I reached for towel, the bird found an opening and flapped out of the fireplace, whizzing right by my head and into our living room. The front door was open, providing a bright light for the bird to fly toward. Unfortunately for him, the screen door was closed, and the little guy slammed into the screen door window. This happened several times. Hey, the poor thing was frazzled and just wanted to get the hell out.

So I made my way to the side door, went outside and around to the front door so I could open it and let the thing out. Of course, as I approached the screen door, the bird got scared and tried to go out a different window, once again slamming into clear glass. Poor little bird.

As I opened the screen door, there was no bird to be seen. So I bent down to prop the door open, and the thing made its escape, once again whizzing by my head as it flew out the door. It wasn't exactly how we planned to spend our Columbus Day morning, but hey, the bird is out and on its way.