That stove flipped me a bird

I was down at Angie’s house last week doing the things I do when she is working a late shift. I feed her dogs and cats, build up her fire and make sure everything is in order for the evening.
When I got there, I heard a noise in the stovepipe. There was a bird in that stovepipe. Now that can add an interesting angle to building up the fire. She had built the fire up that morning, stoked it with some big pieces of coal and shut the drafts down pretty tight. The fire had burned down and wasn’t really all that hot, and she had shut the damper clear tight, which works the best in her stove when she is burning coal. The bird was stuck in the pipe above the damper.
So my dilemma was this: If I open the damper to build up the fire, the bird is going to fall into the stove. If I open the damper, the bird is going to fly out into the house. Well I hit on a thought: If I throw some smaller wood on the coals, shut the door before it starts smoking too bad and then open the damper, the fire will start and roast the bird before I have to put on more wood. Sounds feasible right?
If only it was that easy.
I got some of her pine kindling boards ready, made sure the damper was shut really tight, raked down the coals and put the boards on top. Then I quickly shut the door and opened the damper. I heard the bird fall into the firebox and flutter around a little. So I went on about the rest of my routine.
I fixed the cat’s food, and fed them, then went out and brought the dogs in fed them. After they ate, I put them back out for a bit and that is when I decided to check the fire. I could see flames through the door window, so I thought the bird was probably already dead. I slowly and carefully cracked the door open to check, fully expecting to see a dead starling beside the grate.
I only had the door open about 2 inches when that starling whizzed past my head like a speed jet. The cats of course were on that thing in an instant. It flew back and forth between the fridge and the computer desk with one of the cats after it, then it noticed the bedroom window and flew straight at it. The cats hit the bed, pounced on the bird and took it to the bed. Then one of the cats grabbed it and jumped to the floor. I was sure she had killed it, but alas, she turned loose with her mouth and it took off again. She caught it again, and this time it ended up on a partition wall.
I got in on it then and grabbed a stick that was handy and poked it off of the wall. It made a circle of the bedroom and headed for the front door, but the door was closed. It hit the wall and went down behind the stove. I thumped at it a couple of times and a piece of stove wood fell on it. So I picked up the cat dishes and then on my way out to call the dogs in I grabbed it by its tail feathers and tossed it out the door. It promptly flew away. Leaving me with a great story and Angie with sooty black wing prints on her bed pillows and a befuddled cat that couldn’t figure out what happened to the bird.