Bird Adventure

On Saturday morning, I was in the basement and I opened the door from the basement to the garage -- I forget why, probably to let Whitey or Olive out. Rich always said we shouldn't leave that door open because Olive might bring her prey in, but there was a nice breeze and Olive doesn't really catch animals that often, so I left the door open, carelessly disregarding Rich's sage advice. The next thing I knew Olive was frantically chasing something in the basement and there was a lot of fluttering and squawking. A house finch flew up and perched in the ceiling joists. Olive was beside herself with excitement, but the bird was totally out of reach. He must have known he was pretty safe, because he just sat there on the joist. I left the door open, hoping that he would find his way out without Olive noticing, and went upstairs. Later I noticed a few feathers on the basement floor, so I figured that Olive had won. Nope. A couple of hours later I heard a chirping noise from the living room, and saw the bird sitting in the window. Now what? I managed to sneak up on him with a paper grocery bag and get him into the bag. This time there was more squawking than ever -- he must have thought he was really done for this time. I let him go outside. He seemed to be in good shape because he flew right across the street and headed for a very tall tree. I went back into the house and saw Whitey stalking into the living room. He was undoubtedly attracted by the exciting sounds of an upset bird, which he apparently still found extremely interesting even at his age (pushing nineteen). Luckily at his age he doesn't remember too much about why he's doing something, so I don't think his disappointment at not finding a bird in his house lasted too long.