EnviroSpin Watch

An interview with Miss Jenny Wren.....

Exclusive to EnviroSpin

"Jenny Wren speaks out on 'global warming'"

Interviewed by our Hedgerow Correspondent, Berry Blackthorn:

Although extra-busy foraging beneath a nearby Cotoneaster shrub, Miss Jenny Wren (aged 3) still found time between catching insects and trilling the odd note to give us this brief interview:

B.B.: "Jenny, how has winter been for you so far this year?"

Jenny: "Tit-tit-tit...ccccc! Terrible, Berry. 'Roost Today' was telling us all the time that spring was going to be early through this so-called 'global warming' thing, and then, of course, we have had three weeks of nothing but freezing winds, snow, blizzards and ice. The hedge was so cold. Global warming's all twitter-twaddle. And we little birds feel it the worst, you know. With our teeny brown bodies, we can't keep in the heat, you see, and we had already used up our government SRHE [Special Roost Heating Allowance - 60 birds or more]. So it has been truly grim. Tit-tit-tit.... Uncle Winterkoning wrote to say that it had also been bad over in Germany - he lives at Roosthaus. And, of course, no apology from the BBC [Bird Broadcasting Corporation]. One funny thing, though. They were having a survey to show how early spring was becoming - not a tweet about this for the last four weeks. That really caused me to churrr."

B.B.: "I thought I hadn't heard you about so much this season?"

Jenny, grabbing an itinerant spider: "Yes, that's right. We should have started singing at the end of February, but only one or two of the hardiest made it out-hedge, even though we all want to be sure of our spring spaces. I suppose one good thing is that there have been fewer scuffles and squabbles than usual. The Chief Wren - Mr. Blaird - has hardly had to issue an ASBO [Anti-Social Bird Order] yet. Still, I hope it warms up soon - we have to make up for temp perdu, as Marcel Roost put it - by the way, in those freezing dusks, I have been enjoying the recent adaptation of Roost's work on 'Nestbook at Night'. At least that has been some compensation for all the silly broadcasting about 'global warming'..... Quite ruffled my feathers."

B.B.: "So what do you really think about climate change and the weather, Jenny?"

Jenny: "Well, we birds all know, of course, that the weather and climate are never the same from one year to the next. Great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great uncle Troglodyte (who was born in France) says in his 'Nest Diary' that it was terrible in the late 1940s and 50s, following a much nicer period. He lived to be 7 or 8! Amazing. We just take it as it comes, and adapt as best we can. That's all we birds can do. And double insulating your nest won't do a blind thing about it - not to mention stopping birds oiling their feathers. And as for wind farms? Ban the lot, I say. I hope everybody is going to support the campaign against those terrible things in the latest issue of Red Kite Magazine. We birds hate them.

Sorry, I must fly now as a distant cousin, Miss Gardsmyg, is popping over from Sweden and I have to meet her by the winter jasmine. Tit, tit. tit..... Bye!"

And with that, Jenny whirred off directly for Jasminerow Birdport.

Tomorrow: Berry Blackthorn interviews H. Sparrow of Laburnum Heights.

Philip, all a twitter. Time, coffee in hand, to see if Jenny is up-and-about in the garden.