Work came home as I saved a pigeon trapped in my chimney - Julian Norton

All had been quiet for a day and a half- no noise, no flapping, no debris – until my phone pinged with a worried message from Anne: Bird still in chimney. The words were followed by the stressed faces of various emojis.

We’ve had problems with things up (or down) the chimney before. The first time it was a small remote-controlled helicopter which belonged to Archie when he was about six.

He’d mastered flying it around the living room quite skilfully but, as it approached the fireplace, the little plastic flying machine got sucked up by the rising warm air.

It was like the scene from Mission Impossible when the helicopter being driven by a bad guy chasing Tom Cruise accidently followed a train into the channel tunnel.

Of course, Archie was devastated (“I didn’t think that was going to happen!”) but luckily the ‘copter came to rest on a little ledge about a metre and a half up the chimney breast and was easily and safely rescued.

The next disaster came a few years later, when a crow fell down from his perch on the chimney pot.

He made a terrible commotion and during the rescue attempt flew round and round the living room for quarter of an hour as we tried to shoo him towards the open window.

Each time he collided with a wall or the ceiling, he made a crow-sized, indelible sooty imprint which necessitated getting the decorators in as part of the clean-up. We didn’t want this to happen again.

I found a torch, peeled back the blanket which was keeping everything safe and clean and peered inwards and upwards.

Sure enough, minding his own business, was a pigeon, sitting on very same the ledge on which the helicopter had come to rest years earlier.

I tried to formulate a plan, which did not take long. Anne had suggested nets (before beating a hasty retreat, with some sort of excuse about an urgent appointment) and I’d considered a large towel to grab him, but in the end, he just sat there as I reached up and grasped him gently around his wings and body to bring him out to safety.

I took him to the back door and off he flew, a little shaky at first, but strong enough to make it up into the hedge to recuperate.

It reminded me of a time many years ago, when a colleague and I had been treating a wild owl which had been involved in some sort of car accident.

It was my first Christmas on call and we both decided that Christmas Eve, just as the winter sun was setting, was a perfect time to release him back to nature.

He flew off majestically, but unbeknownst to us his feet were not so strong. The owl aimed for the nearest tree, but missed his footing and fell, hitting each branch on his way down to earth like a cartoon character, before landing on the ground with a big puff of feathers. It wasn’t such a good Christmas for him.

The chimney pigeon, however, did very well. Within half an hour, Emmy had spotted something in a tree in the garden and was barking furiously.

High up, there he was, sitting, still rather bedraggled, but with his mate and seemingly none-the-worse for his two-day incarceration inside our chimney.