The Wise Old Bird was perched high on the pulpit of the abandoned church, looking down with great thought as the questions began:
"Please tell us, PC Gull, why you arrested Harry the Owl," said the Eagle. "All he did was like a poem about cuckoos."
"It was to avoid escalation," said PC Gull. "Poems are the thin end of the slippery pole. If you don't act, it ends up with suicide, and cuckoos plucked and sold in Waitrose as quails."
"Suicide?" asked the Eagle.
"Yes," said PC Gull. "Dead cuckoos have been found at the foot of trees."
"...because they got so fat they fell out of songbirds' nests. That's the truth, isn't it? And what about the blackbird eggs? Why aren't you investigating who is throwing them out of the nests?"
"We are short of resources," said PC Gull, "and cuckoos are a protected species."
"They are not," said the Eagle.
"They are not," said the Wise Old Bird. "I have the RSPB Book of Protected Species here, and cuckoos aren't in it. You are an unreliable witness. Case Adjourned! I shall retire to consider my verdict."
And with that, he flew off.
"We did well, Harry," the Eagle said. "I think we'll win, wings down."
"Will The Wise Old Bird give us our pound coins back if we win?"
"You can have them," said the eagle. "No Win, No Fee."
And so Harry went to the village shop and bought birdseed and shell peanuts for the forest creatures. And he also might have popped into the pet shop for a fat mouse. He was an owl, after all.
The forest creatures were happy, but what would the Wise Old Bird say when he returned?
For now, they would all have to wait.
