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Most years, birds nest at the top of our chimney. The sound carries well down the chimney, and it's very pleasant to be able to hear the starlings or mockingbirds from our living room. Yesterday, however, instead of remote twittering, I heard a bird growing louder and louder in the chimney. I knew immediately that a bird had fallen, or flown, all the way down into our fireplace!
Foxy and I went over to investigate. It was dark in the fireplace, and neither of us could see, or hear, the bird down there. I figured the bird had flown back up the chimney.
About 10 minutes later, the bird, which had apparently not flown back up the chimney, came bursting out of the fireplace into my living room. It flew madly around the ceiling, ran into the back door window, fell to the ground (still flapping), and flew off toward the front of the house, being mildly chased by Foxy the whole time. It ignored the back door, which we had opened right after it smacked into it.
As I approached the front door, I saw it hanging from the trim around the front door. It was hanging by its claws, so that at a glance it looked like a bat. I had to look carefully to see its bird head to notice it was a starling.
It was not moving as it hung there, certainly terrified. Being right at the front door, I could open it, and perhaps it would have the sense to fly out. But much of its body was hanging over the top of the front door, so opening the door might push it off of the door trim it was hanging on. I approached the door and slowly began to open it. The door was open a good 6 inches before the bird took off again, flying away from the door and back into the living room.
It zoomed about the ceiling for a while, and then headed for the kitchen. It stopped, however, at the wall above the doorway leading to the laundry room. I have no idea how it stayed there. It looked like it was glued to the wall: its wings fully extended and completely still, not hanging onto anything but the wall itself.
I grabbed the largest Tupperware container and a lid, and placed the translucent container fully over the bird on the wall. It didn't move. I tried sliding the Tupperware container across the bird, hoping to scrape it off the wall, but was worried I would injure it if I pressed too forcefully.
After what seemed like 30 seconds of trying to gently scrape the bird off of the wall with the piece of Tupperware, it detached from the wall and started flapping its wings inside the container. I quickly put the lid on it (which was one size too small for the container, so I just held the lid across the opening) and quickly took the bird out the front door. As soon as I lifted the lid, the bird zoomed away, apparently uninjured.
I have not yet figured out what I have to do to keep that from happening again. Do I need to examine the flue? Could I put some screening near the top of the chimney? I'm not sure what the right remedy is. Perhaps I just need to keep a large Tupperware container handy.