No Harm--No "Fowl"

Late this afternoon, when I was coming downstairs to start dinner, I noticed something moving among my plants on the ledge high above my dining room. I was immediately struck with terror because my first thought was--MICE!! WE HAVE MICE!!!!!! But, when the critter took to the air, I realized it was not a mouse, but... a bird! (I don't know why, but the thought that a bird was loose in my house was much more tolerable than the thought of a vile little mouse scurry around on my ledge.) Now, this isn't the first time I had seen wild birds flying loose in a building. On occasion I have seen them flying above us in Costco's huge hangar-like structure, but I had never seen one in my house, or anyone else's for that matter. What a phenomenon, I thought--but, then I remembered when my mother's home was invaded by a much bigger bird, and the occasion was accompanied by a bit more violence.

Mom's kitchen sink was in front of a window that looked out onto the street. On this particular day, she was busy doing dishes and looking out the window. She dropped something on the floor, and bent over to pick it up. Just then an object came flying through her window at high speed shattering the glass above her, and landed with a thud on the opposite side of the room. At first she thought someone had thrown a rock through the window, but she turned around she saw a pigeon lying motionless on the floor. She was astounded. How could a bird fly fast enough to break the glass with such force? She picked up the bird, and carried it out to her patio intending to give it a respectable burial after she cleaned up all the glass. A few minutes later when she peeked out, the bird was gone. It was evidently a tough old bird that survived the blow. Now, that was a phenomenon!

So what did we do to free the poor bird? The first thing I said to my husband was, "Grab the butterfly net and see if we can catch it!" But, silly me--we don't even have a butterfly net. Hmmmm. What could we do? My clever husband suggested that we turn off all the lights in the house and open the doors so it could fly to the light. We did just that, and the bird flew into the kitchen and smacked into the window, then flopped around a bit dazed. Dick hurriedly took off the window screen, and then we basically herded the little thing out the window to freedom.

So, unlike the bird invasion at my mother's home, there was no damage to the house (not even a birdie dropping), and no injury to the bird. As they say, "No harm--no fowl".