The same thing happened to a friend of mine's husband. He went out late to take some laundry off the line, and went to put the pins back into the bag. His hand encountered something, warm, soft and mobile -- it screeched and flew out. My friend said Gene (her husband) staggered back into the house and weakly said, "I think I need to change my underwaer....!" We never could figure out what the bird was, he never really saw it... Gail Mackiernan