What to do when there's a bird trapped inside your air conditioner?

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A couple hours ago I could hear it cooing in this strange, unnatural way. The sound is definitely coming from inside our AC window unit. It hasn't made any noise for a while, so it's either too weak to call for help or it's already dead.

We live on the fourth floor, so unscrewing the unit from the outside isn't an option. (Maybe we could get a handyman to do it?)

If that thing dies, our apartment is going to reek.

― lindseykai, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)

can you take off the front and try to get to out? (like how you would change the filter)

― Ms Misery, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)

I'm not sure I can get to it that way, but I'll keep it in mind. If I go that route, I want to wait until it's 100% dead. Scared bird flapping around the apartment sounds a hell of a lot worse than bird stuck in the air conditioner.

― lindseykai, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 16:13 (eighteen years ago)

ugh dude that seems really cruel, if it is still alive you could call animal services and someone might be able to help it.

― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Wednesday, 11 April 2007 16:14 (eighteen years ago)

Yeah, I know. And I'm the bird-friendly one in the apartment. My boyfriend thinks I should turn on the AC and hope the little guy gets chopped up.

― lindseykai, Wednesday, 11 April 2007 16:47 (eighteen years ago)

So, what happened?

― StanM, Thursday, 12 April 2007 06:55 (eighteen years ago)

You don't want a dead bird in your air conditioner. I used to work in an office where pigeons used to routinely fall into the vent and die and the place smelt terrible, all the time.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 12 April 2007 09:30 (eighteen years ago)

English Sparrows are being properly appreciated. Hundreds of them are now caught by enterprising people for sale to certain restaurants where reed birds are in demand. A German woman on Third Avenue has three traps set every day, and she catches probably seventy five a week. They are cooked and served to her boarders the same as reed birds and are declared quite as great a delicacy. This German woman bastes them, leaving the little wooden skewer in the bird when served. They are cooked with a bit of bacon. She tempts them with oats, and after the catch they are fed a while with boiled oaten meal. She sprinkles oaten meal in the back yard also, and thereby fattens the free birds. … So soon as it becomes known that the Sparrow is a table bird their number will rapidly grow less.

People don't like to experiment, but when it is discovered that the Sparrow has been declared good by those upon whom they have been tried, no boarding house meal will be deemed in good form unless a dish of fat Sparrows adorns it. Sparrow pie is a delicacy fit to set before a king.

― sanskrit, Thursday, 12 April 2007 11:54 (eighteen years ago)

http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/04/freaky-trigger-and-the-lollards-of-pop-week-14/

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 12 April 2007 12:14 (eighteen years ago)

I keep reading this as bird as in girl being trapped in the airconditioning.

― nathalie, Thursday, 12 April 2007 12:30 (eighteen years ago)

One of my friends once had a message left on his answering machine that began, "There is a bird--small bird. . ." and continued to describe how it was caught somewhere or other. (I think it was a fireplace?) He saved a tape of it. I would pay a lot for a copy of that, it was just begging to be an asburd vocal sample.

― Rockist Scientist, Thursday, 12 April 2007 13:07 (eighteen years ago)

Recently, a bus stopped at the lights just next to where I was stood, and I could hear this high-speed 'pappa-pappa-pappa-pappa' noise coming from underneath the back end of the bus. When I looked closer, there was bits of down-y looking stuff spewing out of the fan. The bus then drove off, leaving a cloud of what appeared to be pigeon feathers behind it. Musta been sucked up inside the engine. We laughed.

― gnarly sceptre, Thursday, 12 April 2007 13:39 (eighteen years ago)

y'all are some cruel motherfuckers.

― Ms Misery, Thursday, 12 April 2007 13:51 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35DiRh_Zq0Q

― Mr. Que, Thursday, 12 April 2007 13:55 (eighteen years ago)

(It's so hard to describe why that tape was so good. The woman starts off saying, "There is a bird" and then her tone of voice gets really thoughtful and she says, "small bird," like she's really thinking about it.)

― Rockist Scientist, Thursday, 12 April 2007 13:57 (eighteen years ago)

i can't stop thinking about this when i see this thread.

― ken c, Thursday, 12 April 2007 14:00 (eighteen years ago)

1) Preheat oven to 450 degrees...

― Hurting 2, Friday, 13 April 2007 02:06 (eighteen years ago)

During the summer we use the blowers from old A/C units to move air in new buildings or remodels without A/C. 12 or 13 years I was helping on one of the family biz's projects and a pigeon that was loose inside this gutted building decided to walk inside the spinning part - and promptly had his little pigeon legs torn off and feathers flew everywhere.

I was supposed to kill him, but my response was the 11-year old version of "fuck that shit, man, you do it."

― milo z, Friday, 13 April 2007 02:12 (eighteen years ago)

Okay, we went from thinking there was a bird IN the air conditioner to thinking there's a bird nesting between the air conditioner and the ledge. (At least that's what it looks like when you lean dangerously far out the window in the next room.) It was making really strange noises though, lots of scratching like it was stuck and a really weak cooing sound. But we haven't heard anything today.

― lindseykai, Friday, 13 April 2007 02:21 (eighteen years ago)

maybe it's a nest with babies.

― Ms Misery, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:15 (eighteen years ago)

Ok, I'm with the cruelty bit but I have never really fully understood why people would get sad over babies but not adults (or less). We're all equal, also in the animal world. ;-) So what am I saying? I'd definitely not let the bird die, but would attempt to save it, no matter what age. :-)

― nathalie, Friday, 13 April 2007 13:18 (eighteen years ago)

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