Hobbly the Blackbird has already spawned his own merchandise.
An intern on popular wildlife show ‘Springwatch’ has revealed how she was forced to maim a songbird to meet BBC diversity targets.
Hayley Swank was ordered to ‘blunt its beak, or pull a wing off or something’ by an Inclusiveness Director on the programme.
“I asked if I could just give one of its legs a chinese burn”, said Swank. “But they told me I was being racist.”
Instead, Swank pulled a couple of feathers out and fed it a heavy pie, so that on camera at least, it appeared just disabled enough to not offend the audience.
While the vast majority of creatures featured on the show are fully functional, the blackbird joins a stickleback called Simon who has a stickle missing.
Producers wouldn’t be drawn on how this happened.
It’s not the first time the show has courted controversy: last year, a number of young badgers were filmed with slightly bruised arms.
“That wasn’t my doing, that was Chris Packham”, claimed Swank. “For some reason, he just loves punching badgers.”
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