BIRDS...feeling kind of "Hitchcock"..

[mamita]

grabbed my cup of coffee, stepped onto the porch to enjoy....suddenly it sounded like all heck breaking loose in the furnace room. ok....I can understand a bird seeking heat in the winter....but...now?....it takes real effort to get up under that rain cap to fly down the furnace chimney. coffee cup down...the mission was on. I blocked off the laundryroom (our layout is like an open A-frame, but for some reason we did put in a pocket door to close off the back hallway where the furnace/laundryroom is) propped open the back door...opened the door....the bird flew out of the flappy thingie (I assume it's the damper?) lots of freaking out.............and the bird was scared, too. lol finally he finds the door. whew. THEN...a bird hits the upstairs window sooooo hard, I have feathers to scrub off. now...a bird keeps flying back and forth across the 2 kitchen windows. I looked...no nest or anything...yet he won't stop. it's just darn creepy....my coffee is cold...and I had to whine somewhere. this isn't the first time a bird found it's way down that little metal furnace chimney. does that happen to anyone else? the fireplace has a screened cap.........thank goodness. a girl can only take so much bird drama. I just may cover my eyes when I walk the dogs....

[Karenrbw]

A couple of years ago we had a starling come down the old chimney that ends in the basement (it used to be used for the water heater. The cover for the vent hole was a little cockeyed and he squeezed out. I didn't know he was down there until I opened the kitchen cabinet one day and got a face full of scared starling! There was a small hole in the bottom of the cabinet that went down into the basement and he managed to find it. Talk about a heart attack! And then I had to wash all the pots and pans in the cabinet

[BaronsMom]

We have chimney swifts nest in our chimney. Only once did a couple of babies fall down and get stuck.

Chimney swifts are losing their habitat as people put caps on chimneys...

They are a very cool (noisy) - chittery bird. Reminds me of a purple martin - sort of

[Dubi]

We have had birds fly down our woodstove chimney and out into the family room. It's amazing that they make such a long vertical dive. Several years ago we had a nearly-new electric dryer that was taking forever to dry clothes. I called the warranty repair service and they sent someone out. After finding nothing wrong with the machine, he checked the vent pipe. A bird had actually built a nest in it! Unfortunately once the bird started sitting on the nest she died and fell to the bottom of the vent. Never would have thought to have checked the hose for a bird nest!