{"id":699957,"date":"2026-01-16T13:26:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T13:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/699957\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T13:26:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T13:26:18","slug":"sweep-saves-owl-from-waltham-chimney-in-heart-warming-rescue-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/699957\/","title":{"rendered":"Sweep saves owl from Waltham chimney in heart-warming rescue operation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Resident could hear the bird of prey behind the wall after it fell in and got stuck\"Safe<\/p>\n

Safe and sound – a tawny owl in the care of Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue after being rescued by a Grimsby chimney sweep(Image: Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue)<\/p>\n

Michael Nolan has not been a chimney sweep for long but already believes he has the story of his career to regale friends and family with. Michael, of Chimneys UK, Grimsby, was called on for his services when a Waltham<\/a> resident heard noises coming from their chimney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve just become a chimney<\/a> sweep \u2013 I started in September \u2013 and I\u2019d been away on a course to do stove installation when I got a call from someone to say they\u2019d heard a bird in their chimney,\u201d said Michael. Not due to be back until the next day, Michael said to let him know if they heard it again \u2013 which they did.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an open fireplace but not one they were using and the sounds were coming from behind the plasterboard,\u201d he said. \u201cNinety per cent of the time it\u2019s a pigeon or something that goes down a chimney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe opened up the wall \u2013 they had a little vent in the plasterboard and we managed to break through there, so there wasn\u2019t really too much damage, fortunately \u2013 and you could see a bird\u2019s brown feathers but nothing to say what type of bird it was. The standard way of getting them out is to push them up with your brush.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy brush came out of the top of the chimney, but no bird. When I put my CCTV inspection camera in, you could see as clear as day it was an owl; it just looked straight at us.<\/p>\n

\"Grimsby<\/p>\n

Grimsby chimney sweep Michael Nolan with the rescued owl (Image: Michael Nolan)<\/p>\n

\u201cI pulled my brush down slowly from the top and it brought the owl out and into a fishing keep net. It was a team effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the help of the resident and my son Rhys, who was with me, we were able to carefully free the owl from the chimney flue. We kept it safe and waited for the Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue, who the house owner had called, to come \u2013 and they were there within about 20 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael said: \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have been able to save a bird \u2013 lots of times they come out dead \u2013 but this is the first time I\u2019ve had an owl. I do think it\u2019s very unusual to have an owl in a chimney.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a mad one-and-a-half hours. The house owner said it was his birthday that day and it was all a bit surreal.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like, \u2018it\u2019s my birthday, I\u2019ve just had my family over and now I\u2019m holding a live owl in the middle of my living room\u2019. For me, it\u2019s a new one.<\/p>\n

\"Just<\/p>\n

Just a feathered leg in sight – the owl was trapped behind the plasterboard of a chimney breast(Image: Michael Nolan)<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a new sweep but it\u2019s a story I will tell forever.\u201d The owl, which turned out to be a tawny owl, was later discovered to be dehydrated and its beak was damaged from having tried to scrape its way back up the flue, Michael said, but he added it was doing well and \u201csure to make a full recovery\u201d.<\/p>\n

A social media post by Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue said: \u201cEmergency admission \u2013 even while closed. Although we are currently closed to new admissions while we prepare our new rescue centre for opening, we will always do our best to help in urgent situations.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast night, we received an emergency call about a tawny owl trapped inside a chimney in Waltham. When we arrived, a local chimney sweep had already done an excellent job of safely retrieving the bird, which was being carefully contained in a resident\u2019s net.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn assessment by one of our volunteers, the owl was found to be dehydrated, with damaged feathers, an injured wing, and a fracture to the hook of the beak\u2014most likely caused by repeated attempts to escape the chimney. The owl was immediately taken to a local emergency veterinary practice, where fluids were administered and X-rays were taken to assess the injured wing. Thankfully, the X-rays showed no fractures.<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/p>\n

Michael Nolan with the rescued owl (Image: Michael Nolan)<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The tawny owl in a keep net awaiting the arrival of Cleethorpes Wildlife Rescue(Image: Michael Nolan)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe owl will remain in our care for the next few days to stabilise. Once strong enough, they will be transferred to Louth Bird of Prey Rescue, as we currently don\u2019t have a suitable enclosure ready to house a tawny owl.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you to everyone who continues to support us. We can\u2019t wait to reopen our centre and resume full admissions again soon.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Resident could hear the bird of prey behind the wall after it fell in and got stuck Safe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":699958,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3847],"tags":[169367,21356,128227,35981,70,16,15,120204,1717],"class_list":["post-699957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-cleethorpes","tag-good-news","tag-grimsby","tag-louth","tag-science","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-waltham","tag-wildlife"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115905009140892631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699957\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/699958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}