January 22, 2022

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. 



14 comments:

  1. Interesting post! Love the squirrel.

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  2. A friend of mine had a bird down the chimney and fluttering behind the gas fire. It took some time and expense to remove the fire and then to discover it was a Starling.

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  3. How interesting ...the starling who came in from the cold. I picture a book being published!!

    And thanks for stopping by to link in this week.

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  4. So maybe the starling was looking to buy the house. :-)

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  5. Hello,
    That is strange about the starling in the house, maybe a realtor let the bird. Cute closeups of the squirrel. Thank you for linking up and sharing your post. Take care, have a great day and happy new week! PS, thanks for leaving me a comment.

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  6. A few years ago a raccoon took up residence in our attic and it was an expensive exercise to get it removed and have all potential points of entry, including vents fitted with wire cages to prevent it happening again.

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  7. Beautiful Starling close up Linda.

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  8. i have gotten birds in my house, no fun!! and no fun getting them out!! starlings can be pesky, but they have that beautiful rainbow of color when you view them up close!!

    charlie is so sweet, i named mine junior...he's a real piece of work!!!

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  9. Adventures with animals should be your blog name today! Starling in the house without any way of entering...a mystery there. But hopefully you'll figure out how he entered so as to not have to take care of future feathered visitors! Charlie just doesn't know what's coming, being a perfectly satisfied guy in the here and now!

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  10. The mysteries of how critters get inside houses!

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  11. It must have been a vent as source of access.

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  12. How strange to see a Starling in your house ...
    Pleased you were able to get it out.

    All the best Jan

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  13. Ha, maybe you should have asked the starling for his financial ability to pay for the townhouse -- he sure seemed to want to live there. I have had birds fly into our house (when we owned one in Oregon) but I always figured out which window somebody left open !

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