When I got home from work today the heat powered fans had been knocked off the top of the woodburning stove. Didn’t think much of it, picked them up, made a mental note to figure out which animal was responsible and finished putting away the groceries.
A while later I hear what sounded like a bird flapping its wings against the window. Except there was no bird.
A while later I noticed that Trouble seemed awefully facinated with the top of the stove. I figured I’d found the culprit, chased her off, and went on with my evening.
A while later I heard that sound again.
Except this time it sounded like it was coming from the stove.
A moment of brilliance, I opened the stove door to see wtf?
A moment of flight as the House Sparrow shot for the door.
A moment of ‘holy crap’ as Trouble made a flying leap and caught it on her first jump.
A moment of ‘uhoh’ as Apollo convinced Trouble to give him the bird, and let it go.
Another moment of ‘holy crap’ as Apollo duplicated Trouble’s jump.
Apollo was a good boy and took it to his crate to eat, as I racked my brain trying to remember if sparrows carried anything that might be dangerous to him. Except he was baffled by the feathers, so I was able to convince him to trade for a treat.
Sigh.
Oh, so funny. Wonder how the sparrow managed to get in the house and in the stove? Hope it was an English sparrow; those are an invasive species anyhow.
Chloe likes birds too. Have to be careful. She was trained for upland bird hunting; but if the bird hides rather than flushing, she sees no problem with fetching a live bird. Except – oops, that’s not legal. If left to her own devices, she would have a bird plucked of its feathers in short order. We have never let her keep one long enough to see if she would eat it.
Pretty sure thats the kind of sparrow it was, I didn’t get THAT good a look at it before it got mauled, but thats what it looked like.
We had to replace the chimney cap & pipe last year after a chimney fire at the beginning of March, I don’t think either of us noticed that the new cap didn’t have the full mesh all the way around till last night….ooops.
Hah, Apollo has always had a tendency to try to stalk robins in the yard, but this was the first time he’s actually been able to catch an actual bird. He kept picking it up, and mouthing it, and putting it back down and looking at it, and picking it up….I really think he didn’t know what to do with the feathers! Otherwise he most definetly would have eaten it.
I’ll never forget the time that Prince “caught” on of our cockatiels; it took a flight from its cage door straight into Prince’s mouth (which was open because it was hot and he was panting). He couldn’t spit the bird out fast enough – good for the cockatiel and great for a laugh from me. Oh, and Prince got a treat.
Thats awesome lol.