You know how we feel about gossip and rumours, but hoy baby! Do we have a doozy for you! 
 
Yours truly (that’s us) were just minding our own businesses when we happened upon a rant of extraordinary proportions.  It seemed like every bird and her ticks were there, many of them holding up leafy signs of support.
 
It started out nice and mathematical, talking about common denominators. Now if you’re thinking that means how to multiply 2⁄5 by 2⁄2 to get 4⁄10 on the way to 2⁄5, so did we. But we were wrong. Apparently it’s about the apes.

“Apes have taken our bush and turned it into concrete!” This was our first clue about a thickening plot.

“Apes have made us forget how to fish and taught us how to chip!” —Yes, we thought that was a good one too.

“Apes have made it easy for the brave to take over the streets.” —No, we have no idea. If anybird does, please write in and tell us!

Now we all know the apes are getting a bit too brainy for their own good, and when we need to hit them over their collective heads with a comet we will.
 
Look, we could go on. But it was all “65 million years this” and “1 million years that”. There was even a flock of starlings promising to re-run the Hitchcock experiment — but we don’t think things have come to that yet… not really… do we? 

Let’s just keep collecting those bits of plastic in hope!

Remember our old friend Tail-Feather-Colours-Inverted-Like-A-Currawong? Or maybe you know her better as Black Currawong, that strange, outspoken magpie and member of the Circle movement.

Well, she and her partner-in-statistics—Nolsson—are at it again. This time they seem to be trying to save lives through maths.

Apparently it’s by counting how many birds get hit by cars all over the city. It’s a gruesome task, and the crows may have something to say about it, but we wish these budding statisticians luck.

Don’t forget—anyone interested in Black Currawong’s speeches can find her lecturing every day in The Big Green.

Contrary to popular belief, apes do not have bottletops for beaks. There’s absolutely no evidence to support the boreal myth that apes shed their bottletops, spitting them out when they become blunt or damaged, and grow new ones.

That’s right! Yesterday was Date Day and Graduation Day is just around the corner.

For those of you born yesterday (and we know some of our readers actually were) that’s the day when every bird and her ticks will be at the sewage plant to hear who chooses who. (Or whom if one of us wants to always be pedantic, not pointing any claws, Peabody.)

This year we’ve chosen to follow the Eastern Melody, a small group of cocklings putting their hearts on the line in a tiny park nestled between the river, the ocean, and a packed-like-sardines-high-rise-suburb-of-concrete under the schooling of Ms Stormfeather.

First, we nabbed a few of the Eastern cocklings for exclusive interviews and, spoiler alert, we’ve saved the best for last—Orville himself.

Oh and we would have had an interview with a mudlark we think was called Igor but we couldn’t hear what he said, despite us asking loudly enough.

“Of course I’m confident,” says Douglas Douglas.

“I’m clearly the best flier,” he continued. “I can hover like a kestrel—all that’s left is the nest-building and I’ve been practicing at that already. What hen won’t want me?!” —errrr…that’d be us, Douglas Douglas—too cocky by half.

“We guess we’re kinda confident,” says Bert, while Wilbur nods enthusiastically. “We think we know what the henlings want us to be.”—hmmm…we’re pretty sure we’d want you to be yourselves, am I right hens?

“I can only be me,” Carlos says.

—wow! Did he just read our minds? “If I’m true to myself she’ll see that, and she’ll love me and stay with me forever.” —whoops! Perhaps not…arrogant or ignorant, we’re not sure if it even matters, this one’s a no-go from us…

But here’s the one you’ve been waiting for, dear hens, from the beak of Orville himself: “Somehow,” he tells us with an unprepossessing shrug,

“I’ve already been chosen.”

—swoon! What a hopeless romantic…

Enough about the cocklings, we hear you complain. What about the hens? And who was it who broke all the rules and chose a mate before Graduation Day?

Allow us to introduce you all to Durba Dovegrey, henling of the moment!

“Well, his landings are perfect,” Durba tells us. “And his duets are spot on—all about how he’d provide for me and our eggs.”

But why choose now, we asked her. Why break all the rules? Well, turns out the answer is simple.

“Because I love him,” she says.

“And I’m not going to risk losing him to any other hen.” Well, call us old and cynical but we don’t understand the sentiment. We hope it works for them.

Amelia Vermilion, at least, had a much more normal response. When we asked how her practice date went she just glanced at a yellow toe-ring that perfectly matched her eyes, flashed her lashes at us, and declined to answer.