Sitting in the conservatory having breakfast this morning, I looked out down the garden and watched a squirrel on one of the bird feeders.

An hour later it was still there, so I went upstairs to get my camera, and leant out the window to take a picture. Except from up there, and through a decent lens, it looked nothing like a squirrel.

Not quite sure what it was, I went out into the garden to investigate and found not a furry rodent, but a terrified bird, wedged inside the food cage.

Poor thing was still very much alive, but with its legs pinned to its sides and its head stuck through the bars it could barely move. As I unhooked it from the end of the pergola and laid it does on the grass it did its best to flap its wings, but all they did was make a silly rattling noise against the bars.

Wearing garden gloves, then, Paul held it still and covered its face so it couldn’t see what we were up to while I went to the shed and collected the secateurs so I could cut it loose. It was so tightly wedged I was worried I might end up cutting its legs or skin, and every time I snipped through the wire it snapped with a loud crack that, for the bird, must have been close to deafening.

About ten minutes after we’d first lifted it down, though, we were able to peel back the cage and step back. It flapped its wings, perhaps for the first time since dawn, stood up and shook, and then launched itself off across the lawn.

It chirped as it flew.

It sounded for all the world like it was actually saying ‘thank you very much’.

And then it was gone.

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