Had a word again with the resident Blackbird. I told him I'd seen three Swallows on Sunday. Seems like Spring might be near. He wasn't very happy with this news. "Swallows!! The immigrate then emigrate gang! They come here and get 'benefits!' Their nesting sites are as they left them last year. Old sheds, falling apart barns, not to be altered or repaired because the swallows will return. Everybody yells "They are back, it's Spring!!". "Huh! All them migration scroungers come here and get protected. Benefits that we don't get. I had to build my nest in a new hedge this year. A farmer dug up all the hedgerow. The year previous the tree we had mortgaged was chopped down for firewood! Resident birds get no recognition like them damn benefit seeking country hoppers! Then there is the Osprey's! Same nest every year, T.V crews filming them, guards watching them day and night, checking how many young 'cuddly' chicks have been born. Then off they go to whence they came under a glare of publicity leaving a heap of crap behind them to be cleaned up using my tax money! I am flying over to Brussels for a few days to lodge a complaint with the 'Ornithological Dept Of Inhuman Rights' about the welfare of us residents who get not one single benefit! We deserve the same rights as incomers do! We add more pleasure to the world, we sing our way through every day. Our 'Dawn Chorus' every year wipes out all that inane squabbling from any of the 'here they come there they go' bunch." He lifted a claw and pointed to a sparrow nearby. "See him! At 4.30 every morning he whistles a knock out version of Charlie 'Bird' Parker's Bird's Nest, and that chaffinch over there, he slays us with his take on Bouncin' At Dawn!" You should get up at 4.AM. and you will here the residents giving out with the coolest jam sessions, but, from the benefit protected immigrant/ emigrates all you get is a cacophony of bum notes! He then hopped away, singing sadly as he did so..."Nobody loves or understands me....no benefits do they grant me...switch off the lights, heading to Brussels for my inhuman rights....Blackbird! Bye! Bye!"
He didn't record a version of this so we will have make do with Sammy Davis.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=hT7WUHtQ6eQ
