A bird in Ally’s hand

It isn’t unusual for me to come downstairs in the morning to find a large amount of feathers drifting around in the hall. These are sometimes, but not always, found near the sad little dead body of a bird; often a sparrow, and on occasion a robin (perhaps the cats’ idea of a festive gift for us.) Sometimes there is no bird to be seen, presumably because the cats have taken it back outside. So today when I found a goodly pile of feathers at the foot of the stairs, I hoovered them up and thought no more of it.
Later I saw Tom staring fixedly at the top of my pulley in the utility room which was festooned with washing. And there was a little sparrow hopping around up there and watching us warily. By the way, I love my pulley, it’s so handy and can carry a full load of washing.
I waved ineffectively at the bird but it showed no inclination to come down, so I waited until James came home and asked him to deal with it. He certainly noised the bird up by flicking a tea towel at it but it just flew around the room crashing into the glass of the door. So we texted our secret weapon - Alasdair. When he arrived home from work he brought through the step ladder and there was a lot of flapping (by the bird) but in the end it took both James and Ally to capture the unfortunate avian and wrap it securely in a tea towel (which has since been washed - we pride ourselves on our hygiene!) When Ally set the birdie free outside, it flew off energetically into the darkness, hopefully that means that it still has enough feathers to get by.
Later when I took the washing off the pulley I found that our fowl friend had left a little present on my trousers - bird poo!