Don't panic! There's a bird in the house!!

This sparrow is where it belongs — outside. Photo by Vladislav Glukhotko on Unsplash

When my wife called me at work, her voice was tilted with alarm. I braced for something bad – break-in, car accident, burst pipe, kid with a broken limb. I was worried because whatever it was, it sounded expensive.  

“Babe [LONG PAUSE], uh [LONG PAUSE], there’s a bird in the house.”

This is where it’s important to note that my spouse is an intelligent, capable woman who nonetheless has a justifiable fear of small woodland creatures that fly directly at her face. 

Getting rid of the bird was something we’d have to do right there on the phone or else I’d risk coming home and starting a new life alone with the bird. I thought about that for a moment. But what if the bird and I became friends? And what if my wife returned one day and the bird wanted me to get rid of her? AWKWARD. Easier just to get rid of the bird.

For the record, the bird in question was a female House Sparrow. This fact explains, for example, why it was in a house. Here I will share with you the All About Birds female House Sparrow description, which was apparently written by a divorced male House Sparrow: “Full-bodied bird of urban environments with a stout bill. Females are a plain buffy-brown with dingy gray-brown underparts.” The description for male House Sparrow simply reads: “Deserved better.”

Personally, I was glad it was a sparrow. A sparrow is a bird one can reason with. There is no reasoning with a bluejay. There is no outsmarting a crow. There is no turning one’s gaze away from a cardinal – the magnificence. But a sparrow – that’s a bird whose basic vibe is, “Ope. Geez. My bad.”

I proceeded to do what any reasonable husband would do in my place – even though I’d never gotten a bird out of a house before, I immediately formulated an unnecessarily complex multi-step plan spoken with the confidence of a man who professionally rids homes of birds hundreds of times a year. I have read of prophets speaking in tongues, words pouring forth from their mouths uncontrollably as earthen vessels for a higher power. Thus, words were spoken. 

“Close every door inside the house. All of them. The bird must be contained. Establish a perimeter. Close all cabinets and drawers. Hide any bird seed. Containment. We must know where the bird is AT ALL TIMES. Total bird awareness. 

“Get a broom – for the shooing. There will be shooing. You can also use a tennis racket, or a snowshoe…

“I know we don’t have snowshoes, but if we did…

“Now, you’ll need to open the living room window in the back. Not the one on the left that takes me 15 minutes to lock because whoever installed it before we bought the house is probably in prison now for fraud, I mean the one on the right that actually opens and closes like a normal window. Then open the screen.”

“The bird flew at me!” my wife yelled.

“Are you OK?”

“Yes,” she said.

I immediately regretted all the times in my life I could have purchased a crossbow but didn’t. If you have a crossbow and a bird problem, you don’t have a bird problem. 

“The bird won’t hurt you,” I blurted. But did I really know that? I was trusting that this particular bird would act like most birds do in standard bird situations. BUT most birds don’t break into your house. Maybe this bird was different. Malevolent. It had already dive-bombed into my wife’s face, and my wife is a very nice person.

“It’s more afraid of you than you are of it,” I mumbled. Again, did I really know that? I was vouching for a bird that played by its own rules. First B&E, then attempted assault. What happens when the world constantly calls attention to your dingy gray-brown underparts? Rage, I imagine.

My wife opened the screen and the window. 

“Do you think it will fly out?” she asked.

“I think it will,” I said, not daring to mention that with the window wide open we ran the risk of every bird in the neighborhood suddenly flying INTO our house, which is how things were trending. But I knew opening the window was a risk we had to take, and I knew it was the right risk to take because I was not the one who had to take it.

“Speak calmly to the bird,” I said. “Build trust. Police negotiating 101. The bird is more likely to do what you want it to do if you build a relationship and have a rapport that…”

“It flew out the window,” said my wife.

I collapsed to my knees.

“Shut the window. Shut it harder than you’ve ever shut it in your life. Lock it.”

“I did,” she said.

I know right now you’re all thinking, “Joe, you’re a hero, and also so handsome.” No, my wife is the real hero. She kept her cool and did what had to be done. I was just there to encourage her on the phone while being handsome.

Not sure who asked first, but one of us did: “How did this happen?”

Terror is dealing with a bird in your house. Real terror is NOT KNOWING HOW IT GOT IN. The unknown is more unnerving than the known. 

That night, I went home and looked for clues. The bird droppings on the living room floor only told me that a bird had been in the house and ate a standard Midwestern bird diet. 

I checked for open windows. 

All closed.

It is possible the bird surreptitiously flew into the house that morning while the garage door was open as we were getting the kids off to school. I would notice a bird flying past me, but my kids are keenly adept at not noticing things – socks on the bedroom floor, for example. They totally would not see a bird. That’s our working theory, and we’ll stand by it until better evidence presents itself but also because it’s easiest to just blame the kids.