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The bird up my flue

Two days ago, I was up at the crack of dawn because a bird outside my window would not stop screaming. I thought it was a magpie but it was a Stellar Jay, which was odd because they aren’t normally that noisy. Yesterday morning, the damn bird was at it again and I was ready to shoot it.

Then, all day I kept hearing the flue in my chimney banging. I figured it was the wind. But this evening, when I still heard the noise and there was no wind, I thought I should check further.

I carefully opened the flue and a soot covered and somewhat stunned Stellar Jay fell out. Poor baby had been caught in the chimney for two days.

I let him catch him breath while I tried to stop running around the living room screaming (I initially thought it was a feathery rat until I remembered we don’t have rats in Alaska). Then I picked him up, dusted most of the ashes off of him and brought him outside where I put a heavy bowl of water in case he wanted a bath.

He hung around a while and then flew off. My heartbeat eventually returned to normal.