Sorry I left you hanging this morning (you know, work and all that...) Here is the story.
I have a wood burning fireplace downstairs in my house. I used to have the glass doors on the front. One day I was downstairs and noticed Jerrie sitting on the hearth, staring into the fireplace. RT was also sitting nearby, also looking in. This was very odd behavior when there was no fire going. So I walked over and looked in - and there was a duck sitting in there! It was a small mallard female. It was spring time and I have no idea why I left the flue open (but I am glad I did! I'm also glad the ashes had been cleaned out.) The doors were closed so she couldn't get out of the fireplace.
So - what to do? The fireplace is only about 10 ft. from the slider door, so I decided to try to get the duck out the slider. Then I thought "well, birds in cages get quiet when you put something over them, so maybe I can put a blanket or something over the duck and get it out that way". OK, maybe I wasn't thinking very clearly at that point, but it seemed like a good idea. All this time Jerrie and RT are staring, fascinated, at the duck. So, I got a blanket, opened the slider, went over to the fireplace, counted to 3, and opened the fireplace doors. This of course scared the duck and she started flapping her wings wildly. And THAT scared both of the cats out of their minds. They both turned tail and ran for the stairs. What made it so funny is that they were actually running OVER each other trying to get upstairs and away from the horrible flapping bird. It was totally cartoon-like. In the meantime, I did manage to get the duck into the blanket and out the slider door. The poor thing took off like a shot. I have no idea how long she sat in my fireplace before Jerrie noticed her. I just know that for a long time the cats would not go back downstairs. Also, whenever they saw ducks outside after that, they would get very quiet and just stare at them with big saucer eyes.
Moral of the story: get chimney caps so the critters can't get down there. Oh, and always keep a video camera nearby to catch scenes like this. I figured I could have made a lot of money on one of those "America's Funniest" shows if I had managed to tape the frantic free-for-all.
