Bird-brained recruit misfires rear gun at Fort Scratchley, hits president, misses his brother

Fort Scratchley secretary Rick Carter with Wing Commander Lynyrd Skynyrd (Free bird squadron) share a bonding moment on Thursday afternoon. Picture by Simone De Peak

I swear I'm not doing it on purpose, I told my editor. I promise I'm not just writing about birds.

I also promise that I'm absolutely not currently running an off-the-books social experiment to see how many columns I can write about birds before the boss asks for a discussion in the "quiet room". (One, it turns out. Questions were asked about this one almost immediately; some respected journalists even tried dangling a shark in front of me like jingling keys, but I'm dogged in pursuit of this campaign.)