Rescue Operation

I have so much catch up to do, but I wanted to record this little adventure before it's not fresh in my mind.

When we were all getting up and getting ready Friday morning, I heard a bird chirping. I didn't think much of it because we had windows open, but then I heard a flapping sound and realized it was coming from the fireplace! We had already found a dead possum in the backyard the day before, so having back to back animal adventures was a little nuts. Daddy-o and I grabbed a bag and prepared to open the woodburning stove door to let the bird out, hopefully into the bag and not loose in the house. Only when we opened it, it was totally empty, and it didn't take long to realize that the bird wasn't actually in the stove or stove pipe, but between the brick wall of the original fireplace and the cast iron of the inset. And with that discovery, it became and lot more challenging, and Daddy-o and Peanut both had to go to work, so I reached out for reinforcements.

I feel really lucky to have a friend who I knew would be able to help me figure this out, if it was doable at all. Part of me was worried that the bird was going to die in there and that would be sad for the bird, and also stinky for us.

But we started planning how we could remove the side panel (and stove if needed), and what we could use to trap the bird. We moved all the furniture away--it's a little stressful to have to tackle a problem like this in someone else's house!

As soon as we opened the side panel on the left side, we knew we were probably in the right spot because we found two little bird skulls. Emily was incredibly excited about this because she makes gorgeous mandalas from the bones found in owl and raptor pellets, but those are often broken and only partial bones, so to find two perfectly preserved skulls was a huge find. How great is it to be able to reward your co-rescuer with bones?!

And rescue, we did! We got our old rabbit cage set up as a trap and then banged on the other side of the stove until the bird made its way toward the light. It took a few minutes to get it to go all the way into the cage, but I was ready with a piece of cardboard and trapped it. The poor thing was terrified, and had lint wrapped around both feet/legs, so we had to clean it up a little before we let it go, but as soon as we set it down in the front yard, it flew up to the tree where it found the fledgling that had been calling out there, all morning. They found each other flitted around the tree for a couple minutes, and then both took off, I'm sure very relieved to be together. It was a happy ending for all of us!