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 :-)