Well played

This afternoon, as I was pottering about in a now very lovely and cool garden, a chickadee flew into the garage. Without skipping a beat I slid into panic mode. A BIRD! IN THE GARAGE! WITH 5 WINDOWS SHOWING INVITING BLUE SKIES!

My panic mode includes vivid imagery of things that can go wrong and what that would look like. A tiny little mangled bird body, raw from flying into all the windows was the first thing that came into my head. One of the cats would find it and ... oh crap, Tyra is in the garage!
So, I carried off an unwilling cat into the house.
Then I went back to find the bird.

It sat on a cable in the highest nook of the little mezzanine in the garage. I imagined it being tired from trying to find a way out.
I opened the garage door. Hm.
While this effectively gave the chickadee a better chance of leaving, in theory, practically it made the exit really hard to see from where the bird was sitting.
Maybe I should scatter some peanut chips about to lure it down and towards the open door?
So I did.
And then I scattered some more.

The bird sat on the cable. It looked at me. I looked back. Minutes passed.
Nothing happened.

"Poor baby!", thought my brain, "it must be paralysed with fear!"
Now what?
I climbed up the rickety stairs, and tried to open the highest window. I have never set foot on those steps before and now I knew why - they are scary. The bird moved its head to look at me. 'I will save you!" I whispered, and pulled at the window with all my strength. It did not move. I tried again. Hurray, it went up! And it revealed a screen behind it.

Crap.

The bird sat on the cable.

I started to wonder if this was really a panicking bird. And if the way it had flown straight into the garage through the open door without hesitation was not a sign it had done this before. There is, after all, food a plenty in the garage, and chickadees are far from stupid.

I went underneath the mezzanine. That way it would not be able to see me and maybe it would stop being scared and come down.

I stood.
And stood.
And stood some more.

I heard some scratchy noises from above, but no bird flew out.

After a considerable amount of standing I stepped back to see what was going on.
There was no bird on the cable. In fact, there was no bird whatsoever on the mezzanine.

I looked through one of the windows. A chickadee was eating a peanut.
I swear it looked at me and laughed.