John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He is remembered for his extensive studies of American birds. He made detailed illustrations of birds in natural habitats. Audubon’s The Birds of America is considered by many to be the finest ornithological work of all time.

The dude was born on April 26, 1785 and so National Audubon Day occurs on April 26 every year. It’s not a bad time to do a little bird watching.

The strange thing is that a group of people now believe (or pretend to believe) that birds are not real.

Taylor Lorenz (NY Times) reports, “In Pittsburgh, Memphis and Los Angeles, massive billboards recently popped up declaring, ‘Birds Aren’t Real.’ On Instagram and TikTok, Birds Aren’t Real accounts have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers, and YouTube videos about it have gone viral. … Adherents even protested outside of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to demand that the company change its bird logo.”

“The events were all connected by a Gen Z-fueled conspiracy theory, which posits that birds don’t exist and are really drone replicas installed by the U.S. government to spy on Americans. Hundreds of thousands of young people have joined the movement, wearing Birds Aren’t Real T-shirts, swarming rallies and spreading the slogan.”

So yeah. The song of the day is “Surfin’ Bird” as covered by one of our favorite currently active touring groups, Radioactive Chicken Heads. The song has not been officially released yet. We currently feature the version by The Ramones on the live stream.

I really love the visuals in this video. It’s a cluckin’ great time!

-Wacky Alex