Chirp, cheep, tweet. This week’s theme for things is birds. The feathers are flying. Suspect fowl play.
A blog of many birds, though I haven’t counted them. This month’s Carnival of Color, where my green guys have gone to hang out, is graciously being hosted by 10,000 Birds.
Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller of birds on the attack.
An expression that means “eat small amounts.” Of course, actual birds can be seen to eat constantly, and consume large proportions of their body weight each day.
A saying meaning that like-minded people tend to associate with each other. Happily, there’s no actual sticking together, with feathers. Because that would be messy.
This is a nickname that my mother had for my sister and me, her little chickadees. Also the title of a 1940 movie. Apparently was a catch phrase of W. C. Field’s.
Okay, my favorite Phoebe is not actually a bird, but a small person. With no feathers. But phoebes, such as the Eastern Phoebe, are birds. With feathers and everything.
The famous poem. (Features the name Lenore, too, which is a family name. Most recently in use as a middle name by my own little Phoebe bird.)
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!’
Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.’
Once a third-rate superhero, Harvey Birdman is now a third-rate lawyer trying like hell to get by in a fancy law firm. It’s not clear whether Harvey actually went to law school, but he definitely knows the things to say to sound like a lawyer. And he has a suit now, that’s for sure.
A mascot for the United States Forest Service. “Give a hoot. Don’t pollute.”
A fairy tale about a goose with feathers of gold.
We have several yellow birds that bear little resemblance to actual yellow birds:
He tought he taw a putty tat.
This bird list could go on and on, but I’ll stop there for now.
collecting tokens 
My favourite cartoon bird of all time: Foghorn Leghorn. But, whoo! I’ve watched some of those cartoons recently and wow, times have changed. I don’t think I can, in good conscience, let Mme L watch them.
Here’s a bird story that always makes me cry.
There was a send-up of Hitchcock’s The Birds on a British sketch show Big Train (maybe I’ve mentioned it to you before). It was called The Working Class.
In their kitchen, the wife is telling her husband how she was so afraid of seeing so many working class people in the park. The husband is comforting her. Then, a portly, moustachioed man smoking a rollie (Golden Virginia, I’d imagine) and wearing dark-blue overalls, is seen walking towards the house. He slams into the full-glass door and slides, pressed up against the glass, to the ground.
The couple decide to calmly escape the house. There is a flock of dozens of portly, moustachioed men smoking rollies and wearing dark-blue and grey overalls, surrounding their car. There is an ambient sound of the working class men mumbling `allo luv, and got a few spare quid, luv. Quietly and calmly, the couple squeeze through the crowd, the husband warning his wife look straight ahead and don’t give them any money.
bird by bird, the lot of it.
Sage-
Ah, Foghorn Leghorn. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. I know what you mean about the cartoons. I was recently trying to explain to Phoebe that it is not funny when someone gets hurt and says “ouch.” However, if she were to watch the cartoons I grew up with, she might learn a different lesson. (And thanks for the link to the Oscar Wilde story. I’d heard of it, but never actually read it.)
Jangari-
That sounds really funny. (Is that the show that did the “the the the” sketch you told me about?)
jen-
Is that an expression? Or do you mean the Anne Lamott book?