Birds In The Stovepipe

Spring of 2007

In preparation for the warm weather to come, my apartment manager’s decided to pressure wash. Ok – it meant moving everything off of the deck, but at least they were trying to clean things up a bit. I could hang.

I guess this shows that I don’t cook very often, but about a month after the pressure washing there was a bit of excitement in my kitchen. I heard scratching noises and chirping sounds coming from the fan in the hood of my stove. I had no idea what it could be. I was ready to get creative in the kitchen but had to put it all on hold. Something was in the pipe. I was freaked out! Oh please don’t be a rat……

I took off the screen covering the fan. Ok, there was the fan, looking perfectly normal – I guess. But whatever I was doing was upsetting the noisemaker up in the vent. More scratching!!

Damn, I resigned myself to the fact that I was going to need to get my toolbox out and remove the fan to see this thing. I covered my burners up with paper towels and got to work. When I took the fan out a couple of little tiny feathers dropped onto the paper towels. I thought that was weird, but I’m used to weird. I peeked up there but the vent looked to be closed by some sort of a flappy thing.

Arrgggh – another level to go! As I began taking the screws out that held the flap in place the scratching got crazy and I heard frantic chirping sounds. I realized it must be a bird that somehow got trapped in there – poor thing. That explains the feathers.

As I removed this next obstacle, a little tiny bird leg poked through and I stopped. I could tell this was a baby bird. I don’t know if it’s a fact or not, but I had heard that if you touch the chicks in a nest, the mother will abandon them. I reached for my rubber gloves.

About that time, my boyfriend Rich came in. Whew, great timing, I could sure use another set of hands. He finished removing the flap and I put my hands up ready to grab the little bird. And down he came, actually two of them. Yikes, I didn’t think about something to put them in. I looked around and saw the clothes hamper on top of the washer. That would have to do.

I was setting them gently in the hamper when Rich called out that another one had just dropped down from somewhere up inside the pipe. Poor baby had dropped all the way down and was sitting there, terrified on the paper towels. I grabbed him up and put him with his siblings. Three little orphans, now what was I going to do?

Rich and I stared at the chicks as they stared back in wide eyed terror. Just then we heard more noise coming from up inside the pipe. I grabbed a flashlight and handed it to Rich to investigate. He aimed the beam and peeked up.

“Oh crap!!” He exclaimed as he jerked his head back and out of the line of fire. His exclamation was in the literal sense. As the poop dropped down I was grateful to have had the foresight to lay down the paper towels.

“ Wow, nice miss!” I couldn’t help but laugh.

“ I looked up and saw tail feathers and then I saw it’s butt pucker and I knew. Mother love bone!” His face was flushed.

Now what? There was at least one more up there and no way to reach it. I decided to put a bunch of paper towels in the screen, and hook it back up to catch it (them) as a safety net.

I called animal control to see if we could take the babies to them and to ask for advice about the remaining up in the pipe. It was spring and they were overflowing with abandoned chicks. I would have to fashion a makeshift nest and put it outside to see if the parents would return to them.

Ok, the only thing I had big enough to accommodate them and offer any kind of protection would be the box containing the 18 pack of beer I had just brought home from our adventure to the Redhook brewery. I put the beer in the fridge and stuffed a bunch of paper towels into the box and taped it all shut except for an opening big enough for mom and dad to get through – if they ever returned.

I just finished the ‘nest’ when we heard a scratching and a little thump as another baby bird came down the chute and landed in the screen. We were getting good at this and retrieved the chick like a pro. Five little orphans now. We listened for quite awhile and all was silent. I was pretty sure we had all of them now.

We took the box and put it outside up on an electrical box just below the vent where the parents chose to build their nest. Some of the louvers on the vent were missing – pressure washed right off the wall. No wonder momma and daddy thought they found the perfect place to make a nest.

The parents did find the babies and actually moved into the box nest with the babies. It was one of my happiest moments when I saw the last baby fly away.