Carolina Wren Rescue

I was trying to get the last few minutes of the final snooze button time in when my wife opened the bedroom door and said, "I think we have a bird in our chimney." Sigh. For some reason, last night I thought I heard one, too, but then figured it was one of the boy' video games. A closer listen this morning, however, reveled here statement to be true.

The chimney on this old 1930's house was sealed up ages ago. For a heating source, the previous owners installed a gas furnace that vented into the side of the old chimney. We replaced that years ago and closed off the vent. Fortunately, it is still accessible.

So, once the family was out the door for their daily activities and the cat was accounted for, I moved things out of the way and removed the cover on the vent opening and peered inside. I held my old point-and-shoot in one hand and a flashlight in the other so the shots were not that good but tell the story.

I pulled the vent cover out and a rush of air whooshed by. Almost immediately I could see a tiny figure on the other side.



I could tell right away that it was a juvenile Carolina Wren. It was trying to fly up the chimney but never made it too far. It would then settle lower. I hoped it would just fly out into the house but it was still frightened. I eventually tried to coax it out with a small dish of water. It did pique some interest.



A few minutes later and success! It came out of the chimney. of course, now I had a bird in the house. I had earlier closed all our curtains so it wouldn't try to fly through the closed windows. It tried to find purchase on any small ledge.



Eventually, it made it over to a wreath of leaves. By now I had abandoned the flashlight and replaced it with my son's butterfly net. I had it in the shallow net twice but both times it escaped.



A couple minutes later and the wren headed toward the front of the house. I took a more careful netting attempt and was successful. I carried the bird outside and we were immediately met by the worried adults who heard it call as I opened the front door. One good shot for the records and away it flew.



I guess if you are a bird and going to get trapped in a house it might as well be a bird bander's. Later, it occurred to me that I should have banded this one. Oh, well.

In return for my good deed, the birding community sent me a present. A low-flying Swallow-tailed Kite! It first appeared across the complex and I thought it was carrying and feeding on a rodent.



It flew closer and dropped its meal and grabbed it again before flying directly over me. Once I processed the shot on the computer I could see it was a chick of some undetermined species. Could it be one of the Least terns we were trying to confirm in the area? A Killdeer? We will never know.



Nice to have exciting bookends to a day.