A few years ago I went out for the day and left my bedroom window open a few inches. When I came home housemartins had built a mud nest on it. So it stayed open until the autumn when they emigrated to warmer climes. They had four babies, and had left a window into my bedroom, when they got used to me I 'd say goodnight to them and stroke their feathers in their nest, they slept head to tail in a row. One day one of them made a mistake and flew into the bedroom, I had to coax it out of another window, it left me souveniers.<br><br>
Another time one of my cats sat staring fixedly at the wallpaper in the living room. I listened to the wall, and there was a bird inside it. Many brick houses in Britain have a 4" cavity between a brick inner and outer wall. Oh bugger I thought, and started to move a bookcase because there was a little air vent behind it That I hoped I could unscrew. The bird had squeezed into the wall from a hole in the attic, but it couldn't get out that way, I eventually managed to get it into the living room through the air vent, then out the window. It took four hours, but the bird was fine. That was a very good cat, she'd always tell me about anything I was missing. And she didn't catch birds herself.<br><br>
I've had my share of mice brought indoors though. I find offering them a vacuum cleaner pipe to run into is the best way to take them outside, I can even poke it behind the fridge, and it bends into a U to keep the mouse safe until it is taken outside.