A bird in the…where??

I walked into my home office early, straight out of the sack, without coffee, and heard something hit the floor. I knew right away what it was – one of the smaller parts from one of several Russian nesting dolls sitting on the bookcase. But why would it fall of its own accord? Then I saw something moving – no, flying –  across the back of the room. Sure enough, perched inside the open closet, was a little brown wren. He must’ve been roosting in the wreath on the front door, and somehow got inside without us noticing when we opened the door the previous night.

First frogs, then a deer running through the yard, now this. What followed was a bit like How to Pill a Cat in 13 Easy Steps but not quite as funny. (“Step 1: Wake up wife with the words, “There’s a bird in my office.”)  First, we tried to catch him in an old towel so we could get him back outside. At this point, the poor guy was fluttering around between the blind and the window, with us trying to get the towel on him and doll parts scattering all over.  We almost had him – until he flew away from the window, darted right under the bottom of the closed door, and was loose in the house.

As much as we both love nature and the outdoors, our sympathy and concern for the critter evaporated right then. After chasing him around my wife’s office for awhile, we turned off every light in the house and threw the front doors wide open, so the only light to attract him was from outside, and finally shooed him out.

Other than a bit of my sanity, the only casualty of this incident was the tiniest piece of a nesting doll representing eons of Russian leaders (up through Boris Yeltsin, who was in power when I bought the thing). Peter the Great is still missing in my office, and since he’s only about the size of a match head, he may be gone for awhile.