It came from the depths of the dryer

Early this morning I began to hear strange scratching sounds in my laundry room. Coming from near the dryer. No, wait, the sounds were coming from inside the dryer!

Apparently a mouse (or some other nasty, annoying, small creature) had climbed into my dryer through the dryer duct! Not happy! I was definitely not happy!

I waited until Jeff came home from work this afternoon before we attempted to catch and remove the thing from the dryer.

First, we removed the dryer duct from the wall and covered it with a bag so we wouldn't have the creature running around the house…and nothing happened. Silence.

We waited…and waited…and waited. The thing had been so active all day I couldn't believe it was so quiet now, just when we wanted it to be on the move.

And then the kids and I went to the library and left Jeff to do the remainder of the catching and removing.

After waiting another hour or so, and not hearing any more sounds, Jeff assumed the animal must be dead by this time; so he took out a screwdriver and removed the back of the dryer. He thoroughly searched the back of the dryer, but couldn't find anything.

Then he took out the lint trap in the front and saw something brown with claws. Thinking it was a mouse—a dead mouse—he pondered how he might remove said dead rodent from the deep dark crevice in the front of the dryer.

So he got a long skewer from the kitchen and started poking around…and it woke up!

And it wasn't a mouse; it was a small bird! And as soon as it awoke it jumped up and landed in the drum of the dryer. And Jeff slammed the door on it.

When next he opened the door, he had no chance to catch the thing because it immediately flew out of the door and into our bedroom. The kids and I weren't home at the time, but Jeff described the harrying next hour as the bird flew around the house, jumped behind various pieces of furniture, hit the ceiling, etc. He attempted throwing several towels and sheets over the bird, but was unable to capture the poor thing.

Finally, when the kids and I returned home just a few minutes ago, Jeff informed us that the bird had flown into the kitchen and was now huddled under some of the dishes in the kitchen sink. Lovely!

I removed the sharp pizza cutter that was dangerously close to the bird's head, and threw a kitchen towel over the petrified bird. I was able to wrap it up securely and take it outside where we released it and it flew off into the night.

The End (finally!)

P.S. Since we're homeschoolers (and, of course, always looking for learning opportunities), we're interested in finding out what kind of bird this was. Unfortunately, I know absolutely nothing about birds (we're learning about birds NEXT year). Would any of you be able to take a look at the pictures of our culprit and let us know what kind of bird this was?