A BIRD landed on a clothes pole - and what happened next led to a major rescue operation involving the RSPCA and firefighters.
The blue tit perched on an old cast iron pole in the back garden of a house on Leymoor Road in Golcar ... and then fell down the hole in the middle.
The tiny bird had somehow slipped past a tiny crossbar at the top and was hopelessly jammed.
Tanya Stagg, 29, who lives at the house with her husband Nigel, was in the garden and saw the bizarre incident unfold.
"I noticed this beautiful little blue tit fly on to the clothes-line pole," she said.
"To my amazement it looked around and then nosedived in.
"I waited and waited, but it did not come back out.
"I tried to see down the pole, but it was getting dark and I couldn't see until I slowly fed a small torch on string down the pole.
"There looking back at me was this little birdie, totally stuck!
"I just couldn't believe it had got down there."
Worried the bird would die a slow and painful death, she alerted the RSPCA and an officer arrived within an hour.
But the only way to free the blue tit was to cut the clothes-line pole down. Neither the RSPCA officer nor Tanya had the tools to get through the tough iron - so they called the fire brigade.
Watch manager Kaldip Sandhu, of Huddersfield fire station, said: "The bird had fallen past the first cross bar and was jammed before another bar about 2ft down.
"We cut the pole in two places, turned it upside down and the bird flew away.
"We've never had to a do a rescue like this before."
Tanya added: "The blue tit completed a couple of circles around our heads as if to say thank you and then flew away.
"Both the RSPCA and the firefighters were absolutely fantastic."
