The Bird that Came In from the Cold

On Thursday afternoon, I stopped by the townhouse that I'm selling because I needed to shovel snow off the sidewalk so realtors can show the house on the weekend. It's a short sidewalk and I cleared it in under 15 minutes. Then I sat in the car eating lunch. Wait, is that a bird inside the house? Yes, a starling was looking out the window! I grabbed my keys and went inside.

It took a couple of tries but I did shoo the bird out the door. In the first picture it is sitting on the kitchen window, where it flew after I went in the front door. I opened the back door but instead of flying outside, it flew back to the living room and landed on the storm door. I opened that door and out it went!

It sat on the stoop, probably recovering from the shock of a giant chasing it around. I locked the back door and walked through the house cleaning up white spots that it had deposited here and there. Then I went out the front door. 

The starling was still on the stoop. It hopped up on the door when I passed it and was still there when I left. Perhaps it was wondering how the temperature dropped so drastically.

I'd Rather Be Birdin' / Saturday Critters

I had a Zoom meeting to attend and as soon as it was over, I went back to check on the townhouse. The bird was gone. I went in to try to look for ways it might have gotten in but didn't find any obvious openings. I checked upstairs and everything was okay. Did someone let it in when looking at the house? That seemed unlikely because there were no footprints in the snow when I shoveled it. 

Another mystery is how a critter got in the attic of my residence one cold night. It kept me awake with scratching noises until the crack of dawn, when it found a way to escape. A few days later, I had the tree removed that was touching the house, and the worker looked for holes but did not find any. 

That critter did not sound like a bird; I assumed it was a squirrel. It has not been in the attic since then. 

Here are two squirrel photos from today. Charlie appreciates the sunflower seed during this cold spell He may as well fatten up because the next bag of seed is black thistle seed, which squirrels usually won't eat.