DTP student Sam Jones has written an article for The Conversation entitled “Yellowhammer: the Brexit bird with a story to tell about the EU“, about the impact of agricultural policy on this farmland bird.
A little bit of bread and no cheese.
This short phrase may conjure bucolic scenes of the British summertime in your head, or it may just remind you of what you need to grab from the shops on your way home.
If you fall into the former camp, you’re probably familiar with the song of the yellowhammer, a sparrow-sized bird recently thrust into our news cycle as the namesake of the Brexit no-deal contingency plan – “Operation Yellowhammer”.
The yellowhammer’s tune is believed to sound like someone saying “A little bit of bread and no cheese”. When naming their preparations for stockpiling food and other essentials, the UK government evoked the yellowhammer’s report of a bare kitchen cupboard.
But there’s more to the yellowhammer than the tune it sings. The fortunes of this plucky bird have their own complicated history with the EU.
