Nut Birb

Day 152: The internet has spawned many new words, but none with quite as much personal appeal as "birb." The Reddit definition of a birb per Audubon is a bird which is "funny, cute or silly in some way." Audubon expands by adding roundness and smallness to the equation, but specifies that lacking these characteristics does not necessarily exclude a bird from birbiness. A case in point is the Shoebill, which is neither small nor round, but is nonetheless hilarious in appearance. Therefore, the ungainly, top-heavy Shoebill is a birb, although a Great Blue Heron is not. Still, some birds are birbier than others, and in this writer's opinion, the Red-breasted Nuthatch (here affectionately known as "Nut") is about as birby as they come. Round? Check. Small? Check. Funny? Absolutely. Cute? Definitely. Silly? One only has to watch them hanging upside-down to eat to see the point. On all counts, the Red-breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) is a capital-B Birb, a Nut Birb. In the interest of taxonomic clarity, I propose that the scientific name should be changed to Sitta nuxbirbia since the species is not exclusive to Canada.