The conservationist

I was winding up me sundial
When a friend rang up to say
That a meeting was in progress
In the hall across the way.

So I donned me best blue singlet,
Ran the clothes brush through me hair
And strolled grandly to the meeting
Looking suave and debonair.

The wild-eyed speaker on the stage
Stamped and screeched and raved
About our dwindling forest lands,
How the trees must all be saved.

"Take heed, my friends!" he loudly cried,
"For our aim in life must be
To put our shoulders to the wheel
And save each single tree!"

He raged about our heritage -
All those trees we held in trust -
With such frenzied fire and brimstone
That it seemed he's surely bust.

"Now is there one amongst us here,"
He bawled with animation,
"Who truthfully can testify
They've aided conservation?"

Then up spoke Billy Cassidy,
A well-known ego-wrecker -
"I've done me bit. I once shot dead
A RUDDY GREAT WOODPECKER!"