The Attack Bird

Did I tell you about the bird that tried to attack us? It's not quite as funny as the attack roach, or the return of the attack roach, but still a good story. It goes a little something like this...

Once upon a time, on a Saturday morning a long long time ago, in a quiet and peaceful house, there lived a happy unassuming family. (Doesn't it always start out peaceful and unassuming?) I got up with Joseph and we quietly changed his diaper and got a bottle ready - we were going to let Josh sleep in for awhile. We sat on the couch and listened to the birds in the chimney like we so often do in the mornings. We have a happy little family of birds who live at the top of our chimney and I've come to enjoy the amplified tweets and flutters of their wings. Never mind that we've talked about how we need to get a chimney cap because surely it isn't good to have animals living in your chimney...heaven forbid a raccoon or rabid possum climb in there. They'd have to be really hard up to climb up on the roof and nest in there, yes, but still. Never mind that we've had a fire or two and I felt really bad that we were surely smoking them out of their warm and cozy home. And never mind that Josh tried to scare them off by lighting black cat fireworks in the fireplace. Which, by the way, is a REALLY bad and horribly loud idea. And didn't work.

It sounds like they are right in our fireplace sometimes which was really irritating at first and I would scream for them to "shut up!" some evenings after a hard day at work. So, this morning it sounded a little louder than usual - if that's possible. I thought to myself "How would that be possible? That sounds like a bird in the fireplace. That sounds like a bird flapping against the fireplace screen." Brain cranking...fog clearing...wheels are turning fast now...adrenaline starts pumping...then it clicks. And here I sat with my new baby just feet away from the attacking bird. And my jugular was exposed! He would go for my eyes next! And what about the baby!? I was scared and I did the only thing I knew how to do...I RAN! I set Joseph down on the couch and ran away! JUST KIDDING...I took Joseph with me. I ran right into the bedroom and screamed at Josh "There's a bird in the house!" Poor Josh. He was just trying to get a little extra sleep. He didn't want to have to deal with this. Why us?

We came back into the living room and stared at the fireplace screen. You could see the shadow of the huge flapping wings banging up against the glass and hear it thumping around. Oh man, oh man...what in the hell were we going to do? We debated getting a bed sheet-net-contraption. We debated just opening the back door and hoping for the best. Meanwhile...I was positive that he was trying to get to my new baby. We had to get him out! So we called animal control. Apparently they do get birds out of fireplaces. She showed up promptly and with a big net. She inched the fireplace screen back and stuck her net in there and wrestled with the huge, hawk-like, blood seeking, screeching animal. She hollered that we might have to call for backup. Then with all her might see reached in and closed the net and screamed to open the door! We followed her outside to see the.....sweet, little teeny tiny, soft and scared shitless bird take off into the sky. He was one of those small, round, cute little birds - kind of like a little sparrow or something. And we jumped up and down and clapped and slapped her on the back for being such a hero that morning.

Then she suggested two things to us:

get a chimney cap "because next time it could be a squirrel..."

and CLOSE THE FLUE!

Please! Close the flue?! Please! Of course the flue is closed! We wouldn't knowingly leave the flue open during the whole winter letting warm air out. We wouldn't knowingly leave the flue open with a family of birds living up there! We're not that silly...are we? So how would the bird have gotten down there anyway? We decided to check it "just in case". I crawled in the fireplace with a flash light and the flue was open. Wide open and just calling out for little scared birds to fly in our house. We still don't have a chimney cap (yet) but at least the flue is now closed so no more man eating attack birds can get in.