I saved a bird today

Every spring the songbirds show up and nest. Each morning there is a loud chorus that wakes me up when I leave my bedroom window open. There is the one odd farm bird that crows.

A few years ago a couple of birds got trapped in my chimney. My cat was focused on the fire place and I could hear something scratching around in there. It's a double walled stove pipe with a spark arrestor at the top. There's just enough gap at the top for a small bird to fall into it and then drop 20 feet to the bottom, and there's no way out. The birds were in the air gap between inner chimney and the outer wall. It's kind of like a dougnut at the bottom. There are all of these little metal spikes that hold the real chimney on center.

Back when the first two birds got trapped I climbed up on the roof and removed the spark arrestor and shined a flash light down tot he bottom. I could barely see down there even with a very bright light. But I realized it was a bird. So I made an "elevator" out of card board and lowered it down. I had to stand on my tip toes to even see down the stove pipes. The bird was in the outer air gap or it would have come out of hte fire place no problem.

Anyway the elevator I fabricated out of cardboard and duct tape just freaked out the bird. The bird could only walk around in one direction as it was so tight in that space. It gave up the ghost. So I poured water down on it and that brought it back to life and I could see it drinking the water.

I used to have a parakeet and I knew that if you put your finger on the belly of the bird it would jump on to it. So I decided to make a perch and if I could just get it up to the belly of the bird it would hop on. I got a little stick and then made like a swing with it and lowered it down. At first the bird would run away from it and go around the circle. Finally I got the perch in position next to the bird's belly and it got on. Then I haulled it up. But all of these spikes were in the way. I got it half way up and it jumped off onto one of the spikes. So I positioned the perch again and the bird got back on and I hauled it all the way up.

The bird was exausted and just sat there. So I grabbed it and took it inside and put it in a shoe box. I scraped some seeds off of a hamburger bun and gave it some water. But then I heard another bird in there. So I went back up and an hour later I got it up. It was a nesting pair. They spent the night in the shoe box and then I let them go in the morning. They totally trusted me and would sit on my finger. Finally I got them to fly and away they went.

I had to tape closed the gap that they got into. That was several years ago. Well today I could hear the same sound. Another bird had gotten trapped. So I went up on the roof and removed the spark arrestor and looked down while standing on my tip toes. It's hard to see way down there even with a strong flashlight. Anway I could tell there was a bird down there as I could see it's body and it's beak. So I built another perch. This time I took the reel off of my fly rod and used it for the line. At first the bird just freaked out and fought the perch. So after an hour or so I gave up. I squirted some water down on it with the bottle from my bike and I could see it drinking the water.

I went in the house and watched the horse race on TV. Then I kept hearing the bird now and then. I couldn't relax. So up on the roof I went. I decided I'd try again despite the odds. The bird figured it out. It kept walking around and so I positioned the perch so that it would go through it. And when it did I could tell it's feet grabbed on, so I started to up-haul it. I got it about half way up and it got hung up on one of the spikes, and off the bird went. I tried to get the perch back to it but it went back down to the bottom. So I started over. This time after about 20 min more it got back on the perch. And I hauled it up. It got right to within an arms length of the top and got hung up on another spike, but the bird was hanging on for dear life, and looking right at me as if to say, "don't let me fall back down there again!" I freed it from the spike and up it came into the daylight. Then off it flew to freedom.

Then I taped the gap up again. I just couldn't sit there in my front room and hear that bird slowly die like that. It was horrible, but it was rewarding to bring it up into the light of day and freedom. Birds are a lot smarter than people think.