Starling invades!

Thanks ladies. The cowl suggestion is a good one although this isn't a regular thing - 3rd time in 20 years!
I couldn't get near it with a towel or pillowcase because it stayed up at ceiling height! The fishing net might have worked but I don't think the cat would have got any closer than I did.

I'm glad it's gone out, now. Another trick to try is throwing a towel over as it makes another pass through your room.

Get a cowl fitted to your chimney, too. People in our road had problems with starlings coming down the chimney. They put a cowl on so the birds moved on to the next house. Those people then had to install a cowl so the birds 'flitted' house once again. Eventually all of the houses had chimney cowls on!

I don't know where the birds went after that - maybe moved on to another group of houses? The chimney sweep must have made a small fortune as he was the one who fitted all the cowls.

Hi I also echo fishing net.
This is my worst nightmare and has happened to me several times.
I have even called DH home from work in tears as two starlings were flying round our bedroom.

We have also had them in the boxed pipe for the toilets.

My BiL found that they had pecked the mortar from a couple of bricks and were actually moving the bricks to get in to the loft.
I would recommend checking your bricks and mortar as well as under your soffits.
They are canny birds and will return year after year.

At the beginning of early spring I would lie in bed and listen to the starlings scraping round in the loft.?

Could you borrow a cat?

I think you have to make the room as dark as possible and put a source of light near to it's escape route? However, the fishing net idea is by far the best one.

We once had a bird fall down between the cavities of our wall. Apart from pulling the wall down, there was nothing we could do and had to listen to the poor thing fluttering around until it went quiet. Most upsetting.

The last time I had a bird I’m the house, I trapped it in my fishing landing net when it dropped down onto the arm of a chair. It was the only thing I had had in my landing net for some time! .

Thanks Hilda.
Just returned to the freezing living room to check and as I walked in it swooped from the cornice to the window opposite and exited quite gracefully! All this after nearly 2 hours (or maybe more).
I now have to clean up the poo - only 2 dollops spotted so far - gather up the papers tipped out of the basket and climb the stepladder to replace a couple of snapped hooks on the curtain rail.
But not until the room warms up and I've had a cup of tea!

Have you tried catching it in a pillow case? I've always had success with that method. Mind you, that was some years ago, in a different house. I used to have visits from all sorts of birds as we were in the countryside.