There's a poor little birdie trapped in the hallway in front of our apartment. He's been there all day. I figured he was confused and couldn't figure out how to get out, so I walked real close to him in order to urge him in the right direction.
This worked fine until he took a wrong turn into the stairwell and under the staircase. I've tried everything to get him out. I tried offering him a broom handle as a perch. I've tried placing cardboard under his feet so that I could slowly pull him out. I tried climbing under there with him hoping my presence would scare him out. None of those worked. The problem is that, if I am under the stairwell, then I am blocking most of his only way out, which I am sure is enough to scare him into staying right where he is.
He plays dead when I touch him with the cardboard or the broom handle. he doesn't move. If I move him, he stays where I put him. Eventually, however, as I push more and more on him, he realizes that I know he isn't dead, and so he flaps his wings, knocks his head on the very LOW ceiling (we're talking less than 2 feet here) and pushes himself further back under the stairwell.
I don't know if little birds eat bread or not. But I decided to leave him a small trail of bread pieces leading in the right direction. I hope this works.
I'd crawl under there and just pick him up, but he's tiny and I'm afriad that he'll either have a heart attack or, because of my scent on him, he'll be rejected from his family.
Poor little birdie.
Update: He's free. I crawled under the stairwell and urged him out. Then he flew, but went the wrong way and ended up latching onto the exit gate. We opened the gate, and he flew into the corner. So I pushed his butt up a little and it seemed like his foot was stuck in the gate grating. Jess went on the other side and tryed to push his claws free. He eventually freed it, and flew some more and landed just outside the open gate. He took a few steps and then flew into the wall. Then he looked around a bit, and started calling for his friends. I don't know if they ever answered, but, eventually, he squated down low, jumped high in the air, and flew to a tree across the street.
