Day 118: To quote Audubon's website, "There are certain terms that embed themselves into your consciousness like a woodpecker’s beak in particle board. 'Birb' is one of them...The word began, as near as anyone can tell, when the absurdist Twitter account BirdsRightsActivist tweeted the single word 'Birb' out on November 2012; two years later, it had multiple entries in Urban Dictionary and a dedicated reddit forum." It is my strongly held personal opinion that Red-Breasted Nuthatches qualify as birbs: cute, funny, round, small...all in the classic definition of birbishness. But these characteristics don't necessarily apply to all birbs in equal measure. Any bird can be a birb regardless of its size or shape. The ineffable quality of birbishness lies in the individual's character, and character is something my resident Nut has in abundance. When he appears at the suet feeder, I invariably say aloud, "There's Nut!" Any degree of bad mood is dispelled when Nut is having his breakfast upside-down. Hearing him honk his chickadee-like scold when I'm out in the yard elicits, "I hear you over there, Nut" and a chuckle. I'm sure he thinks being a birb is serious business, but to me, he is a bright spot of humour in my day. If his capacity to amuse doesn't define his qualifications for birbishness, I don't know what else might.
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