Birds down chimneys

[kinkytoes]

We have a chimney with no cowl (something we need to rectify!) Fireplace is just for show, we have lovely central heating.

Couple of times recently in the early morning we've heard a bird scratching around above the fireplace. Once everyone is awake we have moved everything out of the way, held up a sheet to protect the room from dust, removed the chimney sheep (TM), had a feel around and tried to rescue said bird.

NOTHING THERE AND SILENCE

So assume bird is managing to escape back up the chimney by itself.

Never had this before. Does this happen to other people??

You've just reminded me of something very sad. After my step dad died, my mum moved in with my sister and her bungalow was left empty. I visited a couple of times a month to check on it. On of the times I went, I opened the wood burner and there were four dead sparrows inside. I think they had been blown down the chimney in a high wind and been unable to find their way out again. 😭

Aw I'm sorry to hear that @MissMarplesNiece how very sad.

I always thought if a bird comes down the chimney it wouldn't be able to get back out. But ours apparently have.

Yes used to happen all the time at ny childhood home. Chicks would fall down but no way to get to them from inside so they would die. Was so sad. You hesr them tweeting thwir little hearts out and then after some hours silence.

Yes a couple of times. Fisrt time was chaotic as they flew round my sitting room. Since then Ive opened all the windows before moving the fire.

Hmm so they're not making their way out on their own.

I wonder if my family are imagining it!!

After that I always left the door of the stove open and left water and bird food in the room in case it happened again so at least theyd have something until my next visit - it never did, thankfully.

I've just had this. A starling scratching about in the Woodburner. It happens every so often.

Ooh did it makes its own way back up the chimney @Quirkswork or did you have to intervene?

I had to let it out. I don't think it had enough room to take off enough to fly up the chimney again! It flew straight out of the window without a cheep of thanks!

I had one die in the chimney once.
I then had carrion beetles falling into the fire place

When we had our woodburner installed we had a mesh basket put over the chimney pot for this reason, and cowls over the others, a chimney sweep could do this for you

Used to happen all the time in our kitchen, once you removed whatever was blocking up the fireplace, a jackdaw would tumble out, Nothing to do but open the window and shut the door and wait til it made its way out. we got jackdaw hats fitted after a few instances. Jackdaws are not the brightest of birds, I thought we had a poltergeist once, hearing these strange noises, turned out that a jackdaw had hopped in through the open back door and got stuck behind a wardrobe, I was alone in the house and had to call my 'then' bf to come and move the wardrobe so it could get out.

The sounds do come strangely down the chimney, they could be nesting at the top and it sounds like they're inside. We hear a lot of bird noise for this reason, only once had one come down into the stove, bit of a shocker when I opened the door!

My friend's dog was barking at the sheepskin in front of her fireplace. On closer inspection, the fleece was moving. Well, the fleece wasn't but the maggots crawling over it were!

Oh my god.

that is grim! Where did they come from? Was it new or had something been dropped in the rug (I’m assuming unlikely as there’s a dog involved in the story!!)

We had maggots dropping from our (never used) chimney one year. When we got it cleaned out there were the remind of a few generations of jackdaw nests, with some old desiccated remains and one newer corpse. We got a cage fitted pronto! Odd thing is we’d never noticed jackdaws around the chimney though once a neighbour called me out to look at an owl snugly sitting in the (open) cowl.