On a Thursday in January, just after 11am when I had finished putting away the Christmas decorations, the puppies and I sat down in the living room and I heard a noise.
I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and realized a large black bird was in our gas fireplace. This is a sealed gas fireplace, so the bird was behind the glass. The bird had clearly come down the vent.
I called my husband and told him to come home very quickly.
He said he would, but commented that he had no idea WHAT exactly he was going to be able to do, so I needed to figure out a plan/think.
Next I called our neighbor who is a retired engineer, woodworker and very practical guy. He said he would be over in about a half hour. But he also said he had no idea WHAT he was going to do. He also said I needed a plan.
I was freaking out this whole time, with the bird flapping and pecking, trying to get out.
I called the local company who installed our fireplace. He said one service man was on vacation and the other was working out of town and there was no one to help. However, over the phone, he told me how to get the front off the fireplace to get to the bird. I listened very carefully.
I called two critter control places. The first was on vacation, out of town. The second said he had a busy day scheduled, but could come in the evening if needed. And he told me an important thing, he said if we could get everything dark, and the open front door was the only “light” thing, a released bird would simply fly right out the door.
Our problem - the living room window is huge, does not open, is very “light” all day.
This is what we tried -
The front is off the fireplace. That is a huge plastic bag taped to the fireplace and to a chair. There is a wooded box under the bag. Inside the bag, on top the box, are several pieces of wood for the bird to land. There is a light for encouragement.
Two puppies and I were on the loveseat, my husband and neighbor were on the couch, we were on bird watch all afternoon.
The bird would fly into the bag, but would not stay in the bag long enough for the guys to grab it.
Periodically they would send me up to the attic with a roll of wrapping paper to beat on the fireplace vent pipe. That would stir up the bird, but it never stayed in the bag long enough to get it.
All this took the entire afternoon. And then at some point the bird made its way behind part of the fireplace and was quiet. We thought it was stuck, dying. We disassembled our trap and the guys put the front back on the fireplace. Our neighbor went home.
Later, as dusk was falling, suddenly we heard a lot of activity and the bird reappeared behind the glass. Clearly the bird had been taking a nap.
I put the puppies in their crate, we turned off every light in the house, closed every door, lowered the living room shades. I turned on all the porch lights.
My husband took the fireplace front off, again. And we simply let the bird out/loose. And it went right out the front door. The relief was immense.
This whole process took about six hours. Little did we know, there was part two, the next morning.
