Sitting watching the news this evening and Richard and I heard that tell-tale scrabbling noise from the chimney breast that tells you a bird has got stuck down there.

Thankfully the gas supply to the fire in the living room has already been disconnected, so we didn’t have to wait for the man from corgi.

So we (by “we” I mean Richard) cracked on with operation bird rescue and managed to work out how to remove the fireplace.

After some waiting the bird finally worked it’s way to semi-freedom.

It was a bloomin’ crow! We were expecting a sparrow or something, not a whacking great crow!

The poor beauty was so startled it flew head first into the wall, and then had to sit for about 10 minutes. After that I was able to wrap him in a throw and carry him outside, at which point he took wing, safe and sound.

Now we’re left with the clean-up and quite a lot of adrenaline in the old bloodstream. Having a startled crow fly out of the chimney straight at your head is something of an eye opener, I can tell you! But it looks like the (not so) little guy came to no harm, so it’s a happy, if messy ending :-)