Randy’s Guide to Birds
Yellowbird
Varieties:
Audubon’s Babbler, Bananabird, Tweety Bird, Atticus’s Finch, Honey-breasted Fly-swatter, Large-breasted Knockerbird, Yellow-matter Bustard
Scientific name:
Avis flavin
Field marks:
Yellow feathers, black feet (though Yellowbirds sometimes wear shoes); cowardice; out-of-sync simultaneous bobbing of the head and tail
Song:
Tweet, tweet, burp, tweet
Fun facts:
- Yellow-billed Yellowbirds are well adapted for hiding in lemon trees (have you ever seen a Yellowbird in a lemon tree?), while black-billed Yellowbirds are better adapted for hiding in banana trees. It was probably a yellow-billed Yellowbird that inspired one of the best-loved poems of the English language:
A little bird with yellow bill
Perched upon my window sill
I coaxed it close with crumbs of bread
And then I smashed its little head
-
Many supposed “yellow birds” are actually overweight butterflies.
- The little-yellow-marshmellow-bird Easter candy industry earns more annually than the gross national product of all but two European nations. Yellow rubber duckies are found in the bathrooms of 78% of all American households.
