Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Beavers Apologise for Unannounced Overnight Roadworks
The stream was three metres wide on Monday evening; by Tuesday morning it was a pond, the footpath was underwater, and nobody had been consulted.
Fiction — invented for fun
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Animal News — Fiction
Press releases from the rest of the kingdom.
Animal News — Fiction is invented. It reports, in the calm voice of a local newspaper, on animals who issue statements, file complaints and deny everything: beavers apologising for overnight roadworks, a squirrel denying fake burials, a sea otter recalling its pebble collection. None of these reports happened.
The stories are made up for fun, but each one is built on something animals really do — beavers do build at night, squirrels do pretend to bury food, sea otters do keep favourite stones. That is the joke: real behaviour, reported as if the animals held press conferences. Every piece is labelled Fiction and written with the help of AI, and new pieces are approved by an editor before they are published. Nothing here is news, and no real person, place or event is described.
If you want the real animal facts behind the jokes, Weird Facts and Nature Did It First are next door — and they are labelled Fact-based.
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Three good first reads, picked by the editor.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Squirrel Denies Staging Fake Burials
He digs the hole, pats down the soil with great ceremony, and walks away with the nut still in his mouth.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Sea Otter Announces Recall of Entire Pebble Collection
Four stones, three chipped, and one otter with extremely firm opinions about what should and should not be used to open a clam.
Articles
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Mole Declines to Apologise for Lawn, Calls the Hills Surplus Earth
Nine fresh molehills appeared overnight on a prize-winning lawn, and the mole responsible has explained, from just below the surface, that the earth simply had to go somewhere.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Dormouse Requests Extension on Hibernation, Says Six Months Was Not Enough
Woken by a blackbird at the end of April, a hazel dormouse has filed a formal request for three more weeks of sleep, on the grounds that he had only just got comfortable.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Swift Returns After Ten Months, Confirms She Never Once Sat Down
Back over the rooftops after ten months away, a swift has declined the spot the sparrows saved for her on the gutter, explaining that she is still in the middle of something.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Robin Appoints Itself Supervisor of All Digging in the Garden
A spade went into the vegetable bed at ten past nine, and four seconds later a robin was on the wheelbarrow, checking the work and removing anything that wriggled.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Owl Insists It Is Not Grumpy, It Simply Cannot Move Its Eyes
A tawny owl in the old oak by the playing field has asked the neighbourhood to stop reading so much into her stare, which she says is just how her face works.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Puffins Deny Colour-Coordinating Their Beaks for the Summer Season
Spokesbirds for a clifftop colony insist the bright orange beaks that appear every spring are entirely natural and have nothing whatsoever to do with fashion.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Woodpecker Insists the Knocking Is Just Checking Whether Anyone Is In
For eleven mornings a woodpecker has hammered on the metal chimney cap of number four at ten past six, and he would like it understood that he is being polite, not loud.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Raccoon Insists the Dunking Is Quality Control, Not Laundry
Every scrap of bread, three grapes and one entire boiled potato went into the stream before being eaten, and the raccoon responsible would like it recorded as inspection rather than laundry.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Magpie Denies Interest in Shiny Things, Calls It an Old Rumour
A statement delivered at length from a fence post asks the public to stop leaving teaspoons out, and requests one very specific kind of bendy twig instead.
Fiction Animal News — Fiction
Hummingbird Declares Garden Feeder His Personal Property
A hummingbird the weight of a coin has claimed exclusive rights to a sugar-water feeder with four perfectly good drinking holes, and spends most of his day making sure nobody else uses any of them.