Friday 18 July 2014

Buzzin' Fly

I sometimes need reminding that we actually have another room in this house. Virtually since we moved in, three years ago, the front room has been our de facto storage facility, full of boxes of stuff stuck in that limbo state between being kept or disposed of. We have little sort-outs and re-shuffles now and again, but more often than not, we pull the door to and try to forget about it.

A few weeks ago, as we were getting ourselves together in the hall, preparing to leave the house, a jackdaw flew out of the front room. Let me tell you that they're pretty damned big when you get close up. To say it made us jump would be an understatement, but, to be fair, I think the bird was also a bit shocked to find itself flying around inside a house, so close to a couple of flailing human beings. Recovering from the shock, we opened the street door and it gratefully swooped out, up and away, leaving us a few squelchy mementos of it's visit on the floor. The jackdaw had fallen down the chimney and somehow managed to kick out the draft prevention board that's fitted above the fireplace.

Today, as we made similar preparations to go out, we noticed half a dozen large bluebottles buzzing around the hall. I let them out, but on our return there were seven or eight more banging against the glass in the street door. The situation repeated itself a couple more times this afternoon. I fear another jackdaw may have fallen down the chimney, but not been so lucky or determined as the last, perishing in the dark and, even as I type, is being consumed from within by maggots, which are, in turn, becoming our new house guests. Tomorrow we go into the front room, move some boxes, take out the board above the fireplace and hold our breath.

3 comments:

C said...

How wonderful to see the (alive and well!) jackdaw so close up. Such gorgeous, special birds. I think I may have mentioned before in various blog comments that we've had a baby budgie and a collared dove in our chimney. Both survived but I always worry about what might come down it in future, so I do sympathise.

As for the flies - I sympathise greatly too! But the cause here has been small rodents, which presumably got stuck behind the wall before perishing. Not a nice smell at all! I wish you lots of luck with your front room forensics...

The Swede said...

Thanks C. The fly situation was pretty bad this morning, so I donned a mask and went in. As we suspected, another bird had fallen down the chimney, either a collared dove or a pigeon, but this one wasn't so lucky as our friend the jackdaw. Lots of soot around the fireplace area, so it clearly thrashed about in the dark, poor bugger. I removed it (quite unpleasant)and cleaned up, so hopefully this'll be the end of the fly problem. A hood for the chimney has been added to the shopping list.

Erik Bartlam said...

You gotta go in Break Out style full hazmat...in full view of the neighbors. You know...give 'em something to talk about during tea.

I have my little room off the garage and occasionally I get birds in there...expressing their opinions all over my artwork. A couple of times I've gotten a hummingbird in there that can't extract himself from the fluorescent light....he just bangs around in the box at the excessive speed of a humming bird. The second I switch it off, he's out the door.

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