I enjoy working with wildlife and over the years I've encountered a number of situations where birds and other wildlife have gotten into unfortunate predicaments. I've pulled starlings from chimneys, squirrels and woodrats from sewer vent pipes, ducklings from street drains, a screech-owl and baby racoons from trash cans, and last year a wren from my dryer vent pipe inside the laundry room. Today was a new experience as I went to a house in town that had an owl trapped inside a wood stove in the living room. Fortunately, the stove hadn't been used for some time. The bird had been there for three days over the long weekend because the homeowner didn't want to handle the owl fearing injury from the sharp beak and talons.
The house has a standard 8" chimney pipe with a chimney cap but apparently the screening had fallen out of place. Small owls nest in natural tree cavities. When the little owl went into the chimney cap to investigate, it dropped about 15 feet. Inside the stove was one unruffled Western Screech-owl perched on a spark shelf below the chimney. There was no apparent injury so I set the bird on the ground to make sure it could fly. After getting it's bearings the owl flew directly to a dead cottonwood snag in the neighbor's yard and disappeared into a hidden cavity. I walked to the tree and the bird popped it's head out a couple of times, seemingly comfortable to be back home.
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