Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for September 06, 2019

What kind of bird is that? The comic isn’t treating it like a fantasy creature, but it doesn’t look like any real species I know of.

The bird wants to take her on a journey to receive life coaching from a dragonfly.

So the bird sounds like Gilbert Godfried?

Nothing magical like an animal being all “captain obvious” about itself.

Now I’m thinking of the group Trashmen (or Peter Griffin) if y’all know what I mean.

Hey kid, you got any early worms?

We, or at the very least, I always thought Phoebe would absorb some magic.

“Unicorn!”

“Bird!”

Hmmmm.

…and the neighboring cats attracted by that call will turn into lion-based mythical creatures.

Sphinxes? – Questionable.

Griffins? – Well equipped. They’ll wing it.

Chimera? – Too mixed up.

“[Arthur] spent a lot of time flying. He learnt to communicate with birds and discovered that their conversation was fantastically boring. It was all to do with wind speed, wing spans, power+ to-weight ratios and a fair bit about berries. Unfortunately, he discovered, once you have learnt birdspeak you quickly come to realize that the air is full of it the whole time, just inane bird chatter. There is no getting away from it.”

- Douglas Adams, “Life, The Universe, And Everything”

And I thought bird song was about attracting and defending mates.

Callback to Dana’s prototype strip Girl.

C. S. Lewis once wrote that if we could hear animals talk, it would mostly be shop talk. Cows, for instance, would mainly talk about grass.

“Oh – and don’t use bird seed from now on. It may hatch.”

According to both Mercedes Lackey and Gary Larson, most animals are just saying “Hey!” all the time.

Birb?

Bu-bu-bu-bu Bird bird bird, bird is the word

You know the rest.

Do birds call themselves birds and cats call themselves cats…….and rabbits…..

Is this a “False Knees” reference?

A lot of bird “speech” is pickup lines or keep out of my space warnings. Not suitable for Phoebe’s tender young ears.

The Trashmen – Surfin Bird – Bird is the Word 1963 (REMASTERED …https://www.youtube.com › watchLyricsA-well-a ev’rybody’s heard about the birdB-b-b-bird, b-birdd’s a wordA-well, a bird, bird, bird, bird is a wordA-well, a bird, bird, bird, well-a bird is a word… MoreSource: LyricFind

REMASTERED: a sonic improvement, but just as terribly annoying anyway!

It’s simply a behavior copied by celebrities all across the country…

Sort of like “LiMu Emu and Doug” if you ask me

I read somewhere that ornithologists believe that if birds suddenly started talking in ways we could understand…well forget about taking your impressionable young children to the park anymore, as most of their songs are of a territorial or mating nature.

Everybody’s heard about the bird! :D