NEXT time, I'm coming back as a bird. I should like to say this wish was inspired by the swoop of a swallow heading for its nest, or the glide of a swan across a lake; but the truth is rather more earthy.

Birds simply have more fun, it seems to me. I saw a nature programme only the other week about a bird whose standard courtship ritual is a Michael Jackson-style moonwalk.

And there's been a lot in the papers about another bird that can make a noise like a violin to serenade its intended.

It's not just romance where the birds score. They can get away with murder - or at the very least, with a fair-sized free-for-all.

Take, for example, the sexist seagulls of Somerset, who have chosen to dive-bomb only male postmen.

According to reports, the enraged birds have so far knocked one poor postie clean off his bicycle and decked another, leaving him sprawling helpless in the road.

The Post Office has had to draft in a team of women posties to make sure the mail gets through to the villagers of Highbridge, near Burnham-on-Sea.

The RSPB has confirmed that gulls can get aggressive when they're nesting, but their experts are baffled as to why these birds should have taken against men. I'm stumped on that one myself.

Gratuitous violence isn't the only form of delinquency more acceptable in our avian friends than in the human population.

Having a mouth like a sewer is generally frowned upon in polite society, yet a parrot can swear its head off with impunity.

I've never encountered a swearing parrot myself. The best I can offer from direct experience is a mynah bird that made a pinging noise whenever the microwave was on, causing its owners to dash through to the kitchen, wrongly thinking that their dinner was ready.

This bird had spent many hours in that kitchen, watching the lady of the house engaged in household chores.

It could faithfully reproduce her entire repertoire of martyred groans and sighs. It regularly did, when visitors came round and their hostess nipped through to put the final touches to their dinner.

But this bird's efforts pale beside those of Barney the Macaw, who seemed like a nice young fellow when he was first taken under the wing of the Warwickshire Animal Sanctuary.

"Thank you, big boy," was his catchphrase, which could be readily prompted by the offer of a digestive biscuit.

Barney knew a few more words than that, though, as the local mayor found when he visited the sanctuary in a civic party that included a (female) vicar.

The mayor was told where to go in the most direct way known to the English language; the vicar was invited to accompany him; and two policemen standing nearby got Barney's third set of marching orders, reinforced with an insult that happens to rhyme with 'bankers'.

Result: red faces, national newspaper headlines and a fast-track attempt to clean up Barney's act by sticking him in solitary with nothing but the high-minded Radio Four for company.

Nowadays, he only gets out in the evenings, when he's allowed to watch the news and documentaries with his new keeper.

Naturally, the experts have had a field day trying to explain Barney's bad behaviour.

The principal theory is that he just can't help it; he was apparently taught how to speak by a retired truck driver with a foul mouth and an ingrained hatred of all authority figures.

I scorn this social-worker style analysis. It's obvious, isn't it? Barney, like any other amoral hooligan, is doing it because he can.

Ah well... next life.

Updated: 08:41 Wednesday, August 03, 2005