muninnhuginn | Intruder, Ejected

Well, we have this hole in the upstairs ceiling inside the airing cupboard (we described its advent here).

We also have starlings. They creep in under the eaves in springtime and nest in the loft. They're a bit noisy, they spend their time outside screaming at us from the apple tree and dropping shiny bits of bottle top and broken glass over the garden. We actually rather like them--otherwise we wouldn't have tolerated this behaviour for a dozen years.

So for the past month, we've had a hole in the ceiling from loft into airing cupboard slap bang beside a nest. We've not fixed the hole. M's not caught the builders down the way at an opportune moment and the ravens didn't want anything done until the nest was vacated 'cos we weren't having the fledglings killed--accidentally or otherwise. So, there's an 'ole and increasingly active birds and... anyone with a modicum of imagination can guess the result.

Two further facts to note before we continue. First, the ravens have handled birds: we've flown eagle owls and buzzards, manned a buzzard and coped (similar to trimming a cat's claws, but scarier, and riskier for the bird) a peregrine falcon. Second, the ravens are terrified, literally to the point of hysteria, of moths and butterflies, especially in confined places. On the one hand, we rationally know we can handle a small, probably frantic bird, probably without damage to it (and with much less chance of damage to ourselves than handling a raptor); however, utterly illogically, small birds are actually moths and we're petrified of going near them in confined spaces, like say an airing cupboard or even the bathroom.

We heard the first scratching yesterday evening. We told M, who suggested we wait until LL was out of the way. The ravens ceased to function yesterday evening and M went out. With dark came quiet and we didn't want to shed light on the problem in case more potential "visitors" followed suit. The bird, if there was one, might retreat back up the hole, couldn't come to any harm, and had gone quiet enough that Little had ceased to keep a cross vigil alongside the cupboard. (The deaf cat has missed all of this, blissfully unaware.) We know we should have done something then, but having dropped several small, fortunately unbreakable, items due to the state of our hands we weren't tackling things alone--indeed we didn't tackle anything the entire evening.

This morning, the scrabbling's still there, nearer the front of the cupboard (which is a relief as we didn't fancy reaching blindly around the water tank to retrieve a panicking bird). Little is now lying along the door at the front too. M and LL go out. The ravens wash their hair to the accompaniment of squawking, aloft, and scratching and flapping, below. What? Not only did we leave it overnight, we then neglected to act first thing? Yes. For one very good reason. Wet hair, securely fastened in a bun on the top of our head means that our ludicrous fear that the bird will get tangled goes away. We find a cardboard box, a couple of old towels, check the back door's unlocked and place a saucer of bread and milk outside in case we can/need to persuade our guest to eat. We eject Little from the bathroom and barricade the door shut (it's the time of year when the front door's sticking and the bathroom door's too loose: roll on autumn). We grab a towel and gingerly open the door to the airing cupboard. Silence, and not a bird visible. There's a smell of bird, so it must be around, but it's gone quiet... We grab the opportunity to switch the pump for the water heating on. Then we remove the package of loo roll and a tissue box. The bird appears: it's fully fledged tho' not glossy (one of the motivations for getting the bird out was the fear that it might be the parent and that the raucous babes above weren't being fed). We drop the towel gently over it, miss, and the bird heads for daylight. Fortunately it stays low. We corner it twice, before we persuade it to take refuge in the box. Rapidly folding the flaps over the top, we unbarricade the door, tell Little to "bog off" and head downstairs with a very jiggly box. We set the box down outside, opening away from us (and pointing at the saucer of milk) and gently unfold each flap. The bird erupts from the box after a very long, still moment and heads across the garden to the bramble patch. There's a chorus of shrieks from the roost in the tree above.

It's gone. It appeared relatively unscathed. There's still a commotion out there, despite the fact we've gone out and chased the black and white cat that had drunk the milk and was investigating the bushes. (Well, chased is an inaccuracy: with that cat, you simply have to go out into the garden and it runs.) Now we'll just have to hope that we don't get any more taking the long way out of the house: we feel no better about handling small birds than we did before.

Little, meanwhile, is wandering around in a strop.

Intruder, Ejected

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