Twitter back to original meaning

I got a real warm feeling when I read in the Times-Age yesterday that the Brits have decided to turn back the clock and allow the word "tweet" to revert to its original meaning.

Instead of relating to some fan-dangled computer-age nonsense, it is once again to be applied to the tweeting of birds.

The BBC is hoping to engage wonderful old David Attenborough as host of a 90-second slot on early morning radio that will feature the song of a different bird each workday, along with a backgrounder on the bird's behaviour, habits and history.

Bravo - although I believe National Radio in this country beat the Brits to the punch by featuring a brief songful interlude from our birds. I can't say whether that is still being done, as I am now an adherent of The Breeze radio station.

Birds, and their birdsong, are precious additions to our lives. Thankfully, I live in an area where it is not uncommon to have many species of our feathered friends sharing our day.

Along with the more common, but just as welcome, species such as thrushes and blackbirds, we have heaps of chaffinches, goldfinches, miles and miles of yellow hammers, nesting white-faced herons, swarms of lorikeets and colonies of various waterfowl. From time to time, a stray kaka rests up in our trees and, on a nice summer's day, the skylarks twirl their way to the heavens with their distinctive tweeting, or more correctly twittering.

The last named is a sound few urban Wairarapa people hear these days but less than half a century ago they were very common in town, and of course in our countryside.

British countryside is probably under the same pressures as is the case in most developed countries and, sadly, birds and other wildlife are increasingly being forced to the fringes.

No radio tweeting will ever be as good as the real thing but it is better than nothing, as the saying goes.

It is to be hoped young Brits will enjoy Attenborough's programme and perhaps will join conservation movements battling the decline of species to preserve creatures that enhance our lives.