I once had a bird in my flue. I borrowed a neighbor's landing net (used to coax a caught fish into the creel) I open the wood stove's door and banged on the stove pipe. I hoped I could catch the bird, which turned out to be a yellow bellied sapsucker, (really) in the hand net and take it safely outside. Nope! it managed to slip past the net and proceeded to fly frantically around my reading room (I had shut all the doors but the one to the outside). As it flew from my flue it beat against first one wall of the room and than another. It was covered with soot. It left wing and body prints on all the walls, severally. Finally it flew out of the room, out through my porch and up to a handy limb of my giant catalpa tree. There it scolded me for about five minutes before flying off.

Took me the better part of that day to clean the walls.

CB