Check your flue *OR* How I rocked my cats' world!

I was home sick today after being up with stomach issues most of the night and morning. Then I finally fell into an exhausted sleep when it subsided for a while.

Around mid-afternoon, I finally felt OK enough to move downstairs to the living room, where I settled my recuperating self comfortably on the sofa, with my kitties to keep me company. I was half-dozing with Shadowcat snuggled against me when I heard it - a strange fluttering sound, followed by a scratching.

Well, of course I couldn't sleep then. I sat up, looked around for the source of the disturbance, and noticed Tess and Rogue staring at my fireplace with an intensity only a cat with the scent of prey in its whiskered little nose can muster.


That's when it hit me - the noise came from my chimney!

So, now I'm freaking about how the heck to get whatever is trapped in my chimney out, while still feeling pretty weak. My thought processes were not the best at this point, especially since I hadn't been able to eat anything since lunch time yesterday.

I hoped it might figure out that it should fly upwards, where it could find its freedom. Of course, then I started imagining that maybe the creature, which sounded like a bird, had a broken wing or something.

While I plotted on the best way to free it, the silly thing found its way out of the chimney, and into MY FIREPLACE. Great.

I had the little chain curtain already pulled, and a metal screen in front of that. I pushed the screen flat against the opening for the fireplace and pushed an ottoman against it to keep it from falling.

Now I was trying to figure out how to get it out of my fireplace AND keep it away from the teeth of the kitties that were now absolutely beside themselves with excitement and anticipation. Being indoor cats, they've never been this close to a real live bird. They've watched them from windows, but never been able to actually smell them.

I still thought I had some time while the little bird was trapped to find a box or something that would fit over the fireplace mouth so I could somehow catch it to release outdoors.

Again the little finch got the best of me. Somehow, he found his way past the chain curtain and the metal screen, and headed straight up to the third floor, making a beeline to the first window it found there. It was closed, of course.

Oh, and that kitties were close on it's little bird heels, beating me there. This wasn't so bad, I figured. Once I shepherded the cats out of that bedroom and got the door shut, all I had to do was open the window and get the screen off so it could fly out, right?

OK, but the window was stuck. It's the one that is always really hard to open. Great. I try to open it, and the little thing keeps flying at the window, hitting the glass. At this point I'm convinced I'm going to end up with a dead bird in the house, or with some kind of beak attack a la the old Alfred Hitchcock thriller.

I finally get the window open, and just as it slides up, the bird moves towards it, and somehow gets its head stuck between the two window panes. WONDERFUL. Now I've definitely killed it, I thought. I slid the window back down, and luckily it looked OK.

The screen, thankfully, was much easier to pop open than I expected. Of course, the finch STILL wouldn't fly out the side that was open, opting for the top corner which it couldn't get through. So now I had to purposely scare the little thing further. I moved towards it and corralled it towards the open part of the screen, and it finally flew to freedom.

No one needs that much excitement when they are home sick.

And yes, my flue is now shut.

Jennifer A. Ray
http://www.jenaray.com
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