This is not a remake of The Birds

Currently being filmed: The Birds.

The producers would like to make it perfectly clear that they are not making a remake of the Hitchcock film, but a film based on the short story by Daphne Du Maurier. Just like the Hitchcock film was.

Just so we're clear.

Having The Birds in the front of my brain at lunchtime has led me to do a quick search for that song that the schoolchildren sing while all the crows are gathering on the jungle gym. For ages, I've been told that it was a nonsense song created especially for the film.

Nope.

It's an old Scottish song called "Risselty-Rosselty" or "The Wee Cooper O'Fife." You can see one version of the lyrics here, and listen to Pete Seeger forcing a group of 50s era New York hipsters to sing it with him here.