bit of a dilemma, what would you do?

[lucykate]

a bird has fallen down our chimney breast. we have a coal burning stove and its sat on the metal plate that the tube from the stove goes up into. the only way to get to it is for dh to take out the stove as its all sealed in with fire proof sealer. the bird is probably injured, i heard it fall with a thud,but its still moving as i can hear its wings fluttering occasionally.

would you take the fire out to free it?, dh is prepared to do it but i hate to say, i'm not so sure.

we move house in 3 weeks.

[nothercules]

chances are it would die of a heart attack anyway even if you took the fire out.

[LeahE]

I would. There's the kindness-to-birds aspect but also if it dies down there there is going to be one HECK of a stink in the hot weather we're having at the moment. But be prepared for it to express its gratitude by crapping all over the place...

[southeastastra]

we had the same thing with a magpie, it was there for couple of days until i realised what the noise was, the kindest thing would be to free it. I now have a huge hole in the wall (boarded up)

rspca told me to coax it out by using a small bowl of water to reflect the light and nuts. it took a few hours but was worth it to see it free again.

it was huge and i was v scared of it.

[TheBlonde]

if alive it might escape and then fly round your room getting coal dust everywhere

[lucykate]

, the woman who's buying our house has p*ed us off quite a bit.

my worry is that birds are quite fragile, let alone when they are hurt. just the banging it would take to get the stove out might frighten it to death

[pucca]

I would have a go at getting it out, i couldn't listen to it trapped

[lucykate]

bird update,

we couldn't hear anything moving yesterday evening and nothing this morning too so we'd assumed the bird was dead. but at tea time, there was alot of scratching coming from inside the stove. i peared in through the glass and the bird was sat in it staring back at me

somehow, its managed to get itself into the pipe, which sticks up about 2 ft higher than the plate the bird was sat on inside the chimney breast and plopped down into the stove. so, there i was, gingerly opening the door, with a big towel to wrap the bird in, but it flew out into the sitting room. scared the living daylights out of dd, (and me ), flew around the room then landed by the window. managed to open the window and manouver the bird out using the curtain. ran outside the see if it was ok as we have a cat and the bird would be a prime target if its wings were hurt after all this, but miraculously, it flew away .

so, the bird is ok, its out and free, but i'm covered in soot.

[southeastastra]

clever bird! weird that it got into the oven, what sort of bird was it?

[lucykate]

i think it was a starling, and considering it came down the chimney yesterday with such a thud it did look like it hadn't injured itself. i'm amazed and very relieved its out.

[2shoes]

so glad it got free

[Piffle]

And there was I going to offer you my cat to throw down there after it
Two birds with one stone say...