Enough Excitement to Last Me for Weeks

At the end of Peter’s visit with us, a couple of weeks ago, I’d washed all his laundry and packed it up. We’d made a list of all the errands we needed to run, before I took him to meet Kevin so they could return to Fort Worth. I’d loaded all his stuff in the car. We gathered all the videos and books that needed to go back to the library. And, just before I said, “Let’s get in the car,” Peter came to me and whispered, “I heard a sound. I think there’s a bird in the house.”

I thought we had time to play a pretend game, and I said, quietly (because we don’t want to alarm pretend birds in the house), “Where is the bird now? Is he still in this room?”

“No,” said Peter. “I think he flew into your room.” So, we tiptoed to my room, walked quietly in, and …

THERE WAS A BIRD IN MY ROOM!!!

There it is. Sitting on the blinds. I tried to get some video, but the bird was way too quick for me (and probably really fearful, too).

Then I told Peter, “I know exactly what to do.”

I did know exactly what to do, because, several years ago, we had a bird in the house. David had left early to go to church one Sunday morning. He lowered the garage door when he left, and a bird, who flew in the garage for some unexplained reason, and unknown to me, got stuck. When I opened the door to leave for church, the bird flew in. At that point, I had no idea what to do, so I just went on to church.

When I got back home, I called Animal Control. Turns out, they do not come and remove birds from people’s houses. “How do I get the bird out, then,” I said.

“Close all the doors in the house,” the guy said. “Of course, you’ll leave open the door of the room where the bird is. Then, open a door to the outside, being sure that you’ve left a way for the bird to leave. He’ll fly out.”

I found that a little bit incredible, but I followed the instructions, and, indeed, the bird flew out the front door.

I told Peter what we needed to do, and we got to work, closing doors and turning out lights in spaces that didn’t have doors. I opened the front door and put a flowerpot by the storm door, to keep it open, too. I went in the bedroom and rattled around to make the bird uneasy, and, Ta-Dah, the bird flew right out the open front door. Whew! Peter’s idea was that we should leave all the interior doors closed, to keep out birds that might fly in at some other time, but I said, no. Birds don’t usually fly into people’s houses. I thought we’d be all right.

So then, we were getting things together to leave the house and Peter said, “Mimi. I think there’s another bird in the house.”

“Oh, no, I don’t think so,” I said. “It’s not very likely that another bird has flown in.”

Hmmmm. There was another bird in the house. In the living room. So we went back to closing up rooms, and I opened the door, and ZIP. The bird flew out so fast that we barely saw him.

Here’s what we think happened:

The garage door was down, and I was taking Peter’s bags and suitcase and backpack, etc., to the car. We’re assuming that the birds either got caught in the garage, when David closed it when he left the house to go to work. Or, they may have just wiggled in the spaces at the bottom of the garage door. We know they are able to do this, because the baby birds who were in the nest that was in the garage, did not die in the two weeks we were gone. The nest was empty when we returned.

However they came to be in the garage, we’re thinking that they were alarmed by my walking around in that dark space, and flew into the house, which I had left open, and was substantially brighter than the garage, hoping to escape. I didn’t see them go in. Peter didn’t see them go in. But … they were in. And apparently, pretty anxious to get out.