My parents' place had these huge glass doors leading to outside, and one afternoon had gone out and accidentally left them open. I was hanging out upstairs watching tv and thought I could hear something downstairs, a weird noise. When I got downstairs I realized AN ENTIRE FLOCK OF BIRDS had flown in the house. Not just one, at least 2 dozen birds, and they couldn't work out how to get out.

Needless to say, the towel method didn't work that time.

Yes - this has happened to me. But in my case I had 2 birds in the course of an hour. One was smart enough to fly out on his own, but the tiny swallow that was in my house was trapped behind my wine rack and couldn't get out. Of course, in the meantime I'm freaking out and trying to shoo him out... He finally left. But I wish I had thought to call a bird loving friend. :)

@googerber Wow, that sounds kind of gross. Side note: I have that The Bird Barbie from childhood. Haha.

I only remember one time that a bird got into the house when I was a kid. 2 little hummingbirds got in and my mom popped out the window screens to let them out.

However, can you write about what to do if a squirrel gets in your house? That has happened half a dozen times in my life and that is always a terrible, stressful, messy event for everyone.

@Googerber - haha!

We just had a bat, a BAT!, get in the house. That was a fun Saturday evening. We tried the towel method but managed to make things a bit worse. Poor little guy did find his way out eventually but only after he and husband and I had many new grey hairs.

As much as I like them, birds are not empathetic. They lack the brain structure for that. They have simple "fight or flight" reactions to these situations, no more. Staying still so they stop flying allows the birds to settle into exhaustion, and they go into a freeze mode just short of shock. It's not a peaceful, nice thing, but it does make it easier to catch the little guys. Just be quick about it.

When I get birds in the house I open the doors and windows, pop out screens, and shoo the birds out...unless the dogs are trying to get them, in which case I catch them in my hands and take them outside. The most difficult to catch have been hummingbirds (amazingly weightless in your hands). The coolest was a bat that flew in. It flew silently all through the house (not crashing into anything, of course) until I was able to shoo it into a small, low-ceilinged back room. I opened the window and popped out the screen, and closed the door. The bat got upon its own.

I know someone who is a scientist that works with bats and here's what they said about them: wait until they're hanging upside down, and then attach an empty Pringles can upside down to a broom. Scoop him up in the can and then let him out!

@dcyo - Step 1. Get a Pringles can. Step 2. Eat all the Pringles. Step 3. Wait for the bat.

I've never had a bird in my house but I always think of the Modern Family episode in which a pigeon gets into Mitchell's house. Pure comedy.

When I was a teenager we had a squirrel that had made its way into our chimney and kept popping out in the fireplace. Luckily we had glass doors, but obviously we needed to get him out, so I drew inspiration from old Looney Toons.

I gathered up an oven mitt, a cracker with some peanut butter, some string and a small plastic toy dog carrier that belonged to my little sister. I rigged it up so that the carrier was sitting up (with the opening facing up to the chimney) and tied the string so I could pull the door shut. I put the cracker in the bottom of the carrier, ran the string out between the glass doors, closed the doors, put on the oven mitt and waited patiently. About 10 minutes later our little friend came down to get the cracker and climbed in. I pulled the string to close the door as best I could, pulled open the glass doors and and put my hand (in the oven mitt, so I didn't get bit) over the door so he couldn't get out. Carried him outside and let him go.

My whole family watched, and were laughing hysterically - my mom said she wished she video tapped it, but she didn't think in a million years it would work. I've always wished she had, lol.

We had a bird fly down the heater exhaust and into the heater. Luckily it wasn't winter so the heater wasn't on. It then managed to get out of the heater vents and fly into several walls, leaving streaks of blood as it went, since it had been hurt while inside the heater. I freaked out and of course, my husband was at work. I got a friend's husband to come over and he trapped the bird and let it go outside. It was flying a little funny, but went and perched on a nearby roof, licking its wounds.

DCYO, thanks for the bat tip! SEVERAL childhood memories of bats getting in our lakehouse cabin. It was a log cabin with a cathedral ceiling with exposed pine beams, we never knew if the knots were just that or bats! Terrifying!!!

Bats will follow the same flight pattern every night (which for us was one end to the other of our cathedral ceiling!). The only way we found to disturb this was to run a fan all night....it must mess up their radar. Running fan = quiet nights with no bats!

When I was young one got in our basement and landed on the clothesline. My father threw a shirt over it and escorted it back out the basement door.

My husband and I had noticed stuff moved high up for a few days in a row. Turned out we had a bat in the house. That was a little more tricky! After his man screaming (which was totally hysterical btw) from it flying passed him, it landed and was hanging upside down from the fireplace mantle. He grabbed a plastic tub and lid and scooped it down with the lid into the tub and closed it to take it outside.

Oh! Please tell me that was an intentional Arrested Development reference!

Buster "A Bird! Oh my GOD there is a BIRD in the house!"

If so, well done! hahahah

Birds are one thing, Bats are another.

If you have bats in your house, even if you don't touch them, the CDC recommends that you have rabies shots. That's because around half of Americans who die of rabies, have no known direct contact with bats. And if you got a bat bite - say while sleeping - you might not know. They are very small.

Yes, rabies is incredibly rare, so you will probably be OK if you don't get the shots, which is what most people do.

However, in the very unlikely event that you get rabies, you will die. That's why the CDC recommends shots and why we decided to get them when we had a bat trapped in our house (it flew out a screen door we opened). Only 6 not particularly painful shots over 6 days,iirc. Not at all horrible like the 20 shots in the stomach I heard about in my childhood.

We could have trapped and killed the bat and had it tested, but I like bats, so we let it go and had the shots. Upside - if it ever happens again, all we need is a booster.

By the way, the towel trick works great with just about any animal. If they are fast, get ready to have a second thing (box, laundry basket, etc) to throw over the towel before they can run out, but It will definitely slow them down!

I've used it to catch injured baby bunnies (the cat found it first) as well as baby possums that were scattered after our dogs chased the mother out of the yard. Its a lot easier then trying to just grab at them with your hands, which is scarier and more likely to injure them or cause them to freak out and bite you.

@dulcibella, why would you even think of "kill(ing) the bat and having it tested"? Bats don't bite people in their sleep. They are harmless if not handled. While it's true no one should handle a bat --especially one found dead -- it's outrageous to even suggest killing one to have it tested.

I did once have a dog who caught and killed a tiny bat that was probably injured to begin with (it was clinging to my front door). I bagged up the dead bat and called county health, which referred me to county animal control, which received the dead bat and had it tested (negative). I had my dog treated just in case because the incubation period was too close to the delay until test results were available, and the dog's rabies vaccine was approaching expiration.

I LOVE that Barbie!

Towel, scoop up, take them outside, unfurl the towel so they have an opening, stand back and let them find their way back to the sky.

I've just adopted a stray cat, who brought a bird into the house the other day, I thought it was dead and went to pick it up when it moved and flew around the room, I screamed then realized I traumatized the poor bird by standing over it and screaming, poor thing was bashing itself against the window when I said Stop! It looked up at me and I pointed to the open window and it looked at me again and walked to the window very calmly and flew out. So maybe we have better powers of interspecies communication than I originally thought? Who knows. I was just glad it was OK and OUT.

This happened to me a couple years ago. Woke up to a bird perched on my couch. Luckily I was able to direct it out the back door.

The old superstition for a bird flying into your house is not a good one. Not that I believe in such things... but I was freaked out for a few days.

Been to the (not small) grocery store and have seen a bird flying around. No one seemed too concerned and don't think there was any workable solution other than hoping it eventually found a way to get out the automatic sliding doors. Finally, a Barbie worth having!

Just the one bird? Try six ducklings. Six tiny, cute, crapping with terror ducklings ...

http://traveltruth101.blogspot.de/2011/07/from-archive.html

About a month ago, I had a lonely big pigeon fly into our outdoor stairwell and it decided to perch itself up high on top of the doorway to my mom's place, which was against a wall, about 6 feet up. The towel method was not going to work, there was no way to coax it down 3 flights of stairs, and I didn't want it to fly into the huge painted shut windows across.

This was on a Sunday night, when everything was closed but I explained my predicament to animal control who came out the next morning with a tall net. After a few tries, the animal control guy caught the bird and he released it further away. Thank goodness for public services.

This was SO hard to read! I have a bird phobia! I'd scream and run - if my heart didn't give out first. YUK.

This post just reminds me of how much I want that Barbie, but it's so expensive now.

I've had birds in my house a few times. I just close all the blinds and get it as dark as possible, except where I want them to go. They will fly right through a light tunnel and out into the light, easy peasy.

In high school, a bird came down our lit fireplace. Mom just happened to look over and see a black bird standing in the flames and while screaming unintelligibly she managed to open the screen for it to fly out and into the house. And then there was more screaming and a very excited cat until my dad managed to catch it with a towel. The cat was very disappointed.

1. Birds are definitely empathetic.

2. I once caught one by throwing a lightweight hanky over it. For a small bird, that might be better than a towel. If I understand, it's not that the towel makes it impossible to fly; it's that birds calm down significantly when it's dark and secluded.

Then you can gently grab it around its whole body, so you're holding its wings steady to its sides, to minimize the chance of injury. If you have far to transport it, turn it upside down. Many birds respond to an upside-down position by going into a temporary state of suspended animation - it'll be more like in a coma than feeling a need to struggle.

Thanks for this post. The more we know about animals, the better.

A bird flew down my chimney one Christmas morning and was trapped behind the glass front. I recommend using a fitted sheet instead of a towel, because you cover a larger area, and you gain the chance of snagging the bird with the curved edge of the sheet.

Also, bear in mind that being trapped in a house is probably the most frustrating and terrifying thing that will ever happen to this bird, so calm down and be compassionate.

A few years back, I had bats get into the house - two different ones over two days until I found where they were 'overdaying' in my dryer vent when the screen had come off. Getting them into the main room and opening the front and back doors all the way and 'easing' them towards the nearest entrance with a gentle 'ceiling puff' broom worked. Eventually their radar pointed them toward a safe exit.

The key is to figure out where they got in so you can take appropriate action to prevent another occurance.

The day my roommate's cat brought in a bird to play with...and then let it go. My bird story memory....And of course, said roomie, owner of the cat, wasn't home. Thankfully, I wasn't alone with Houdini the Siamese and his catch. Roomie #3 was also there to experience, wave, and shout with me. She was shouting more though as I recall, and that is because the bird flew into her room and sat in her clothes hamper. At this moment, I can't recall how the bird got out of the house except that it was unharmed by any of us, and I haven't let said owner of the cat ever forget that day, as years later we are still friends. And I miss her cat Houdini terribly. He always had a way of making me smile.

I've had this happen. I still can't figure out how it got INTO the house. Anyway, I got it out a bit differently. I closed every door, pulled all of the window curtains shut and left the wide patio door open. It didn't take too long for the bird to stop flying around willy nilly and head straight to the patio door. About 15 minutes. I didn't have to touch the bird, which kinda grossed me out anyway.

I am glad so many people are compassionate about the bats. They eat several thousand mosquitoes in an evening. As far as birds, we regularly have starlings get into the house and can't figure out where they are coming in. Starlings are even more "bird-brained" than the average bird, however, and we have found cornering them and using a box to put over them seems to work best. You can then slide something flat under the box to enclose it and carry them out of the house. A robin got in the house this spring and was easy to shoo out the door by comparison.

I totally lucked out the first and only time I got a bird in my apartment. I had heard a persistent nearby cheeping but figured it was a bird perched just outside my window. Just as I was starting to register the sound, I saw a movement out of the corner of my eye. I immediately went into panic mode... what kind of creature is crawling toward me from my hallway? Well, it was the smallest little wren, just sort of looking at me helplessly. I don't know whether it was sick or panicked or what. We stared at each other for a few moments, and I figured, well, let me get up and see what happens. I did and still the bird didn't panic or fly. So I got a wad of paper towels, went over to it, and it never moved except to look up at me. I gently picked it up, and it moved a little, then not at all. As I took it outside, I thought it may have died in my hands. But when I laid it on the ground, it was most definitely alive. It didn't move as I walked away, but when I checked about half an hour later it was gone. Hopefully on its own and not into a predator's mouth. I can still feel its tiny body between my hands.

@PI, yes! I thought of Mitch right away, too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BloMpmTmSzE&feature=related

Never had a bird, but a squirrel has tried to get in a couple of times. He takes a running leap from the tree in front (I'm on the third floor) and lands on my window screen. After he jumps around on the screen for a minute, he hops back into the tree and continues on with his squirrel business. It's not damaging the screen, so I kind of hope that he'll keep trying to visit!

About bats--sadly, they are increasing becoming carriers of rabies in the US. Current CDC protocols are that if you are awake the entire time the bat is in your house, and you are sure that no one was sleeping in a room that the bat might have been in, you can catch the bat and release it, or better yet, shut in a room, open all the windows and let it fly out on its own, because this way there is less chance of any contact with the bat.

However, if anyone in the house might have been sleeping while the bat was in the house, it is best to either catch the bat and have it tested for rabies, or have everyone get the rabies shots.

In my state, they estimate that 30% of the bats now carry rabies. We've had three bats in the house this summer. Two came in while we were all awake, and we were able to let them fly out on their own. The third we discovered in the morning when we woke up. It was huddled on the floor, not moving. We thought it was dead. A call to the state department of Public Health ensued. The one question they asked was, "Do you sleep with your bedroom doors open?" When we said yes, they said the bat needed to be tested for rabies, as we could have been bitten in our sleep and bat bites are so small that they are usually unnoticable.

They sent someone right out to pick the bat up and take it for testing--the guy from Fish and Game was there within an hour to pick it up and we had the lab results within hours--they did not mess around with this.

Luckily, the bat did not have rabies. It was, however, alive, which surprised us because we had not seen it move. However, it was dying from white nose disease, which is killing a lot of bats in our area.

I know bats are beneficial. But some of them carry rabies. And the only way to cure rabies is to get the shots before the symptoms show. And some insurance companies are reluctant to pay for the shots, which are not cheap--usually running around $1000, unless there is proof of exposure.

We have a bird fly into our store (all windows, open doors often) at least once a year. The hardest part is finding where the bird happened to poop while in the shop. (not to mention having bird poop on artwork makes it hard to sell...)

Been to the grocery store (national chain) and saw a bird flying around. Don't know if it ever exited the automatic doors. Never saw any 'drasticly marked down' groceries either.

No birds but squirrels yes...twice in two different houses. First time my husband was in the loft overlooking the kitchen and I was standing below by the screendoor. I see the squirrel run upstairs and it's on the railing, then it jumps on my husband's head and when he grabbed it, it kinda of squirmmed up and out like a wet bar of soap. Hilarious. Second time I was alone and in the middle of breastfeeding my son when I heard a weird clicking sound in the kitchen so I got up with my son in hand to check it out and we came face to face with a squirrel. He ran back into the living room and eventually I trapped him back in the fireplace. We've since moved a third time but we haven't had a squirrel incident in this house. Yet.

I've never had an experience with birds, but I grew up in a fairly old house, and there were always bats in the attic and walls. Every once in a while one would find its way in, and my Dad would somehow catch them in a fishing net and take them outside. I think he usually waited until they fell asleep so he could scoop them up. They would usually be a little freaked out afterwards, so he would put them in our garden and watch for cats until they calmed down and flew away. I always thought they were so cute!

I've never had a bird, but (don't ask me how) I once had a bat in the bedroom of my 6th floor NYC apartment. The cat want BERSERK!!! Bat wasn't particularly calm either... Got the cat out of the room, closed the door, opened the windows from the top, and sat still. It took the freaked out bat (and he was cute) about 5 minutes to find his way outside.

@Jennysilentg - Running fan, interesting! I wonder what a running fan looks like to radar.

One holiday season many years ago, my indoor/outdoor cat -- a helluva mouser -- came inside from the garden with a bird in her jaws. Somehow I got the bird free and gently tossed the cat into the bathroom out of bird-view, but the bird promptly FLEW INTO THE CHRISTMAS TREE. I bet the poor thing thought: "Ah, freedom!"

I released the cat to "flush" the bird, and then hurriedly put the cat back into the bathroom again. The bird then flew in between two bookcases, back turned to me (while I, in pet-owner-mode, automatically make kissy "c'monnn" type noises to it in an attempt to coax it out, not exactly its lingo).

Released the cat from the bathroom one more time, spooked bird then flies into a trash can, and I run outside with bird and trash can, and the bird flies up and away to freedom. And to all a good night!

I had to get a bird out of my friends house and I used the towel trick but minus the box step. As long as you are gentle carry the towel outside and throw it up into the air and the bird will fly out. Also remember to close the door so it doesn't fly back in.

Since my son was chased at age three by a rooster at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo, he has had an aversion to birds. Birds flew into our house numerous times during his childhood which was much more traumatic for him than the bird. Now I get calls from my daughter-in-law after she's had to cope with a bird in the house...

We often had birds fly into the warehouse where I worked while the overhead door was open for pickups and deliveries. The usual tactic was to leave the door open after the truck had gone and turn off all the inside lights. The bird usually found it's way back out quickly. Every now and then other wildlife would get in and we'd have gopher patrol (or whatever else) where everybody was quickly mobilised to block off the rest of the warehouse and make noise back there so the critter would head for the exit. I was so glad a skunk never wandered in. Definitely livened up the day.