How to Catch a Bird Safely (Indoors, Injured, or Escaped)

Most of the time, the answer is not to catch it. A bird indoors needs an open window; a fledgling on the grass needs to be left alone. And in the US, catching or keeping most native wild birds is illegal under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

When catching really is the right call, the method is the same for almost every bird: a towel, from above, over the head.

First: does it need catching?

A bird loose in the house

Work in this order. Most of the time you never reach step 4.

1. Close the interior doors so it cannot spread through the house.
2. Clear the hazards: ceiling fans off, pets out, stove off, pans covered, toilet lids down, large mirrors covered.
3. Draw every curtain but one. Open that window wide. Turn the lights off. Leave the room.
4. If it is still there after twenty minutes, use the towel method below.

Birds navigate toward the brightest opening. A room with six bright windows and one open one is a trap; a dark room with one bright open window is an exit.

The towel method

• Use a light towel or a pillowcase — something breathable, not heavy.
• Move slowly. Sudden movement triggers flight; slow approach often does not.
• Come from above and slightly behind, where a bird’s vision is weakest.
• Let the towel settle over the whole bird, head included. Darkness calms a bird within seconds, and a covered head is the single most effective calming measure there is.
• Gather it up with the wings folded naturally against its sides.

Wear gloves for anything large or sharp-billed — herons, gulls, raptors and woodpeckers can do real damage, and a heron aims for eyes. For anything genuinely large, injured and wild, call a rehabilitator rather than attempting it.

How to hold one

• Support the body with the wings folded against the sides
• Upright, never on its back
• No pressure on the chest
• Head covered with a corner of the towel
• Brief. Seconds, not minutes

Boxing an injured bird

1. Ventilated cardboard box with a secure lid — not a wire cage, which damages feathers.
2. Kitchen paper on the floor, not towel loops that can catch claws.
3. Dark, quiet, room temperature. No television, no conversation, no pets in the room.
4. No food, no water. A stressed or injured bird aspirates liquid very easily, and the wrong food does real harm. Rehabilitators would rather receive a hungry bird than a wrongly fed one.
5. Call the same day. A local licensed wildlife rehabilitator, or your state wildlife agency for a referral.

For a window strike with no visible injury, an hour or two in the box is often all that is needed. Open the box outside, in cover, and let the bird leave on its own.

Catching an escaped pet bird

Different problem, different method — and chasing is the worst thing you can do.

• Put the cage outside somewhere open and visible, door open, with food, water and favourite treats inside.
• Play recordings of the bird’s own calls, or of its species. For parrots this works remarkably well.
• Talk to it normally. A familiar voice matters more than the food does.
• Work at dawn and dusk, when it is calmest and least likely to make a long flight.
• Do not chase, and do not use a hose. A disoriented bird pushed further from home is much harder to recover.
• Tell the neighbours and post locally — most recovered escapees are found by someone else.

Hunger and thirst usually do the work within a day or two. The bird’s job is to come back to something it recognises, and your job is to make sure that thing is sitting in plain sight.