Dad and Daughter Removing Wild Finch From the Bathroom

Occurred on March 14, 2022 / Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA

Info from Licensor: "I got home from a long shift the other day, and was home for about an hour before I went to wash my hands to make food. I went into the bathroom, and the light started flickering, I saw something drop and thought a light bulb exploded. Then I looked over, and there was a bird sitting on my counter staring at me! We were both in shock. I immediately closed the door because of my cats and started filming. How did it possibly get in? How long was it there? How were my cats not freaking out when I got home? I called my mom, who was equally in shock. She said to try to catch it with a towel. That is when I started recording again to get footage of my attempts. The bird kept flying from high perch to high perch and seemed frantic. My attempts to calm her were not working, although I did get her to chirp back to me. I called my dad, who was half asleep, and made him come over (with a pool net of all things) to try to catch it since he is tall. After about 5 minutes of his attempts to catch the poor thing, she missed a perch and fell to my sink. My dad was able to swaddle her in a towel, and we took her outside. The darkness calmed her, but she clung to the towel. We placed her on my deck, and she still didn't move. We were afraid that she was hurt, but she was just chilling out of exhaustion and calm from the darkness of the night. I got to pet her and went to turn on my flash to get a better video. That scared her enough to hop away, and eventually fly back home. This was probably the craziest thing to happen at my new house. We still aren't sure when she got in, but we expect that she flew in through my garage door when I came in from work. There was no way she evaded the cats for 9 hours while I was gone, and they had no clue that there was a bird in the house. I still remember just looking over and a bird is staring back at me 6 inches from my face. Luckily, having a finch in your house is not a bad omen!