bird in the house!

this happens now and then in london in the warm months, because i live high up and have the windows open a lot -- this time i cannot see how or when it got in, the relevant windows can't be opened, and the outside door hasn't been opened since yesterday, but i've been through the (small) room several times without going outside. Birds are noisy when they fly inside! How did I not hear or see it before?

I am not entirely sure it flew out either -- it may have gone deeper into the house :(

Best way to catch them is to drop a tea towel or something on top of them when they're stationary.

yes i know -- it was a robin and boy was it not stationary, it had flown right into the house, luckily not going up the stairwell which is roomy with potentially misleading skylights

i've manouevred back into the room it was first in, using the alien3 shut-the-door-behind-you method

when i realised it had got through to the sitting room and was fluttering against the window trying to bash its way through, i was momentarily baffled to see another bird on the other side of the glass, also flutting -- actually its mate i think! chittering the alarm (against me) and giving its spouse (possibly bad) advice

at one point it perched on some high object, a defunct fusebox or similar, and when it flew off -- a single low extended sweep down a corridor -- it was trailing a long silky thread of old cobweb

haha THE COUNTRY it is full of mental peril for all

it wasn't actually out when i closed the inner door, but i'm hoping it is close enough to the open outer door that if i leave it, it will get away

Robins are hugely competitive and pretty violent too and the other bird was probably a rival threatening to peck his brains out if he came outside. In fact I reckon he could well have flown inside in a panic if he was being chased by another bird.

Maybe you should arrange some sort of disguise for the poor fellow before you evict him from your lodgings, guy could be facing his feathery doom going out there.

oh noes! i thought it was a lover's reunion :(:(:(:(:(

the other one was a female i'm pretty sure

she may still have been threatening to peck his brains out! #hackneyrudegyalrobins

i've manouevred back into the room it was first in, using the alien3 shut-the-door-behind-you method

<3

(friend of mine that this happened to said the most galling thing was finding his cat COMPLETELY IGNORING the bird instead of HELPING to remove it as cats should do)

i'm in shropshire lex! but yes, maybe she's carrying a to-scale rolling pin

Not sure about sexing robins tbh. Tried to google it and the only sensible advice out there seemed to be "you can't sex them (unless you see which one is on top!)".

That advice was from Mike in the Shetlands btw. It's pretty lonely up there apparently.

oh i thought that lady robins were all brown! the one i saw was (maybe it wasn't, it was just for a second)

haha country born and bred me, I AM SO OUT OF WATER

The brown ones are juveniles. He was being threatened by FERAL YOUTH.

or maybe it was his underage boyfriend worried out of his mind, DID YOU EVER THINK OF THAT?

am off to check if he's actually gone outdoors as i have to go shopping now and should probably shut the back door while i'm out

That advice was from Mike in the Shetlands btw. It's pretty lonely up there apparently.

Do they even have robins up there?

Wiki suggest not:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/Erithacus_rubecula_distribution.png

why are they so phobic of portugal?

Maybe Mike's just met a few through the internet? xp

Portugal = any bird that fits in a cooking pot isn't really resident there for very long

That's the Euro debt crisis for you

robin the poor to seed the er er

he has gone and i am off to the mega-sainbury's near where genesis p. orridge's mum and dad used to live