The Nature of Things

A starling in the gutter is worth?

March

Want to know the easiest way to get a stuck starling out of a downspout? Try arguing.

That was the eventual result at my house Saturday morning, when I heard bird feet scrabbling on the metal of the gutter outside of the bathroom window. Nothing new, really. In past springs, house sparrows have made nests in the gutter. That requires getting the extension ladder and enforcing an eviction.

My first thought was it was kind of early to be nest-building. I opened the bathroom window and the screen and stuck my head out. There, I saw a feather poking out between two sections of the downspout, in the curve where the spout bends back to the house from the gutter. Somehow, a bird traipsing through the gutter had fallen into the downspout.

So out came the ladder and the wife. Did I mention that I won’t climb to the top of the 28-foot-tall ladder? Anything higher than a step ladder and the wife goes up.

She unscrewed the straight portion of the downspout. No bird.

We then had to move the ladder over so she could unscrew the curved section. That involved a bit of bickering: how to move the ladder, where to put it, etc. The starling then took wing because, as my wife said, “he couldn’t take it anymore.”

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 11:01 am by Mike Risinit.
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