Joe, I read the same. Anything Google yields us is traceable back to one single source of information related to "The Birds ...". It may be correct, but may also be an error, as so many similar items of information. For example, brother Nicholas may have posed as "the arranger of a traditional song" for copyright reasons.

The sources say that the track was recorded in 1968 but first published on the 2004 CD as a "bonus track". The questions that arise are:

1. Why should a song that was certainly designed to be a round (of at least three parts) be first published one-part, without even mentioning its property of being a round?
2. Was the round really unknown before 2004? Did a mere decade suffice to establish it as a folk round, including folk processing of the name?

If N.T. is indeed the author, it seems much more plausible that he had published the music before the recording, in some songbook. Corroboration would be welcome. Whoever the lyricist and composer, Peter Tork did not do them full justice.

As I wrote, the recording published in 2004 seems to be the raw result of a "looper" recording. I guess the original intention in 1968 was to process it into a round, but that has gone lost. Nowadays, fans of famous bands are supposed to appreciate raw material as "bonus" - see the loads of Beatles waste material now sold for good money.