After a few days of ignoring claims of there being a bird stuck in the chimney I heard some fluttering myself and decided it could be true. Sure enough on taking out the back plate from the stove a bit of nesting material and a dead bird dropped out followed shortly by a live one. A few days later another bird was stuck in the stove.

The installer claims there’s no fault with the cowl (fitted in November last year) and that he encounters it a couple of times a year. I have never had an issue in the past with birds, has anyone else had this problem?

Yes. Several times.

Our cat caught her first bird because of this. I took the (gas) fire out and a bird popped out and was plucked out of mid-air by a pint-sized kitten who hadn’t actually been outside yet.

A mesh cover on the chimney solved it,

A mesh cover on the chimney solved it

Did the same at my Dad’s. He had a couple of crows down there. First one, he let out (chimney bunged) and it smashed its way around his living room for an hour or so in a blind panic, shitting, vomiting, breaking stuff and ignoring the open windows.

Second one he heard after a few days away, and wasn’t moving much, so he decided to let it die and take it out later. Didn’t really enjoy hearing the death throes much, so sent me up a ladder with some plastic mesh and some wire twine.

The installer claims there’s no fault with the cowl (fitted in November last year) and that he encounters it a couple of times a year. I have never had an issue in the past with birds, has anyone else had this problem?

If you had a live bird in there, then it is getting in somewhere. I’d add some chicken wire to the top of the pot, below the cowl and look for other ways the birds could have got in. Crows / Jackdaws are a real pain in the neck for this.

Light it, I bet it tastes like chicken 😳