a bird in the hand
(okay, kitchen)

We’ve had plenty of birds come down our chimney over the years, sparrows and starlings, mourning doves and mockingbirds, and once, a squirrel.

Rescuing the squirrel was a challenge, but with the help of my dad and a craftily formed cardboard and plastic tunnel, he eventually made his way outside. For the birds, I’ve developed a system that almost always goes off without a hitch, closing all the doors to all the rooms, (with the cats behind one of them) and opening the front door which is about 15 feet away from the fireplace. Then, I open the fireplace and wait. Almost always, after a few moments, the bird will fly directly out the open door.

When I woke up this morning, all three cats were sitting in front of the fireplace looking in, so I knew something was up. A few minutes later I heard the tell-tale scratching and saw a bird hopping around inside, but I thought it was a sparrow. It wasn’t until he flew out (in the wrong direction) and landed in the kitchen that I saw what kind of bird it was.

It’s not every day that you have a bluebird in your kitchen, and so, since my camera was handy and he seemed okay, I took a moment to snap his picture. I felt a little guilty, but who could resist?

What followed was a comical dance of him flying from window to window, (never quite figuring out which one was open), with me trying to scoot him towards the right one, both of us flapping and squawking, until finally I was able to trap him in a glass hurricane and lift him to the right spot.

And away he went.

He flew over and landed near the nest box and sang for mama bluebird, who eventually showed up. I’m fairly certain that their eggs are already damaged, the nest has definitely been tampered with, so I don’t think we will have babies this year. And this makes me sad.

But, I had a bluebird in my kitchen, and that made me smile.

Ordinary magic of the very best kind.

You gotta love life.

 

 

Share/Save

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 9th, 2013 at 11:00 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

12 Responses to “a bird in the hand
(okay, kitchen)”

I cherish your comments...