Chaffinch
£25.00
A lot of lies about chaffinches, from the ‘Lies About Birds’ series. (Scroll down to read the text.) Illustrated with a poor photograph of a paper bird I have made out of old RSPB magazines.
A4 print, mounted (and put in a cellophane bag to prevent escapes).
(Please note that, regretfully, I don’t send work outside of the UK.)
1 in stock
“A chaffinch launches into song in every part of the UK on the first day of February. It is the law. If chaffinches didn’t announce the start of February, January would go on forever. Chaffinches contain a strong internal spring mechanism which means they can effortlessly ping off the ground. Without the spring mechanism chaffinches would be unable to do this as their tiny pink feet are not designed for leaping. In January the males begin the careful art of ‘slow-reverse-spring-winding’ in order to create an alarm clock out of their spring mechanism. This allows them to deliver an accurate and triumphant song on 1st February. Less mature males often get the speed of the ‘slow-reverse-spring-winding’ wrong and some go off briefly and unexpectedly in January. This is extremely embarrassing. The phrase ‘chaffinch spring’ has come to mean a false start to the spring season but in fact just describes an extremely tightly wound bird.”
