"Heart of a lion, this one..."

Let me just preface this story by telling you two things about me:

1. I am scared to death of bugs and critters inside the house

2. My fight-or-flight response is flight all the way (if you don't know what I am referring to click here)

By now you have probably guessed where this is going...

A few nights ago Andrew and I were sitting in our living room when we heard a weird noise coming from the kitchen. After about the second clutter, I requested Andrew go into the kitchen and inspect what the disturbing noise is. I say "requested" but it would be more appropriate to say demanded.. At this point I knew we had some sort of critter under the oven and I was quick to picture a giant rat.

Andrew jumped right into attack mode.  He handed me broom and asked me to stand in the doorway of the kitchen.  He had a mop and began to investigate.

I stayed long enough to get this picture:

Suddenly the monstrous critter began to poke its head out from under the over and moments later I was bolting out kitchen and out the front door.  

This was my view:

To our great surprise our critter was a BIRD!  The bird crashed around our house for a few seconds before it finally found the front door.  I have never been more terrified of a bird in my entire life. Birds, bugs, critters are fine as long as they do not come inside my home!

Here is the big question: How on earth did a bird get behind our oven?!?!  

Andrew pulled the oven away from the wall and found this:

A big hole in the drywall. Apparently the bird got in from a vent on the outside into the walls, then it found its way through the hole behind our oven and got stuck between the wall and the oven. The noise we heard was its wings and talons trying to get out from behind the oven. It eventually just crawled its way out.  

To be sure we did not run into this problem again we taped a big piece of cardboard over the hole:

The cardboard must have done the trick because we have yet to have another bird sighting.