The first time I heard it, I was getting ready for bed, and I just about jumped out of my skin. It was a rumbling, scraping, thumping noise, and seemed to be coming from inside my house. But when I turned on all the lights and looked around, I couldn't find an explanation. Nothing had fallen. Nothing was out of place. It definitely was not associated with an earthquake.
Ultimately, I figured that my neighbors must have been moving furniture in the corridor between our houses. It was the only remotely plausible explanation I could think of. It did sound a little bit like the noise of moving the trash bins around--just louder. A lot louder.
I heard the noise once the next day, and then once more when I was on the phone with a friend. By this time, I was pretty convinced it was my neighbors dragging things around, though I never did see them doing it. I was trying to figure out how big a thing they must be moving to make so much noise.
As I was getting ready for bed last night, I though I spotted ash around the front of my fireplace, but I was tired, so I decided to ignore it until morning.
This morning, I noticed feathers mixed in with the ash. "Of course," I thought. Birds must have been fighting over who got to use my chimney as a perch. Wings and talons on the roof might sound like the noise I'd been hearing, and the attic space might amplify the sound. A big clump of ash falling down the chimney would make noise, too. (I don't use the fireplace, so I didn't bother to get the chimney swept when I moved in.)
I fetched the dust pan and small broom, and peered through the glass doors and metal screen into the fireplace, wondering how big a task I was facing. A mourning dove peered back.
After talking it over with my dad, I decided that the best strategy was to open the outside doors as wide as they would go, and close all the interior doors and window curtains. Then I opened the fireplace glass and screen. Much to my relief, the bird was still strong enough to fly, and it took her mere seconds to find and take advantage of an exit.
How do I know it was a her? The egg under the fireplace grate was a dead giveaway. (Sadly, falling from the grate to the concrete cracked it. Not that it would have been likely to survive in any event.)
So now the bird is free, the fireplace is cleaned, the flue is closed, and the mystery is (hopefully) solved. And I won't be so quick to blame my neighbors for strange, random noises in the future.
