Where, on the Continent, most of the French birds are? (4)
I believe the answer is:
oise
'where' is the definition.
The definition suggests a singular noun which matches the answer.
'on the continent most of the french birds are?' is the wordplay.
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'the continent' becomes 'eu'.
'most of' means to remove the last letter.
'the french birds are?' becomes 'ois' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'eu' with its final letter taken away is 'e'.
'e' put after 'ois' is 'OISE'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for oise that I've seen before include "French department" , "part of France" .)