ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE BIRD THAT
CLEANS THE TEETH OF THE CROCODILE

Herodotus called it Trochilos; [1]
the Runner, moving swiftly into
the crocodile's jaws to clean
out the leeches. And Aristotle [2]
and Pliny [3] and Aelian [4] repeated
this; and there the name lay in
agreement until 1827 when the bird was
identified as the Egyptian Plover [5]
and also identified by Livingstone
as the Spur-Winged Lapwing [6], two
different birds that live peaceably
in the same area. So which one is it?
Is Plover to Lapwing like Hesperus to
Phosphorus? And if nobody in a century has
seen them do it [7], is either Plover or
Lapwing Trochilos? Two birds united by
a third name which seems to belong to
neither of them. Perhaps I am Trochilos,
approaching the crocodile with a bird
mask, a cautious gait, a toothbrush.

XENOCANTO

A bird was singing locally; a short descending call
followed by one ascending, and two quick "chipping" tones.

I went and did some research. I could not find the call.
Surveyed birds in my area like Craigslist missed connections.

A Coburg-based Pied Comorant; the very selfsame call.
But all the other comorants were different in inflection.

So my mistake to think there was one unifying call,
when there is only us and what we say amidst our homes.

I THINK WE SHOULD PUT THE BIRDS IN ORDER (AUSPICES)

There are fifteen standard bird emoji.
Here is the order in which they appear on my computer,
through the Win+. emoji shortcut,
entering the keyword "bird"
(excluding the badminton emoji,
which also shows up in this list)

🐦🐓🐤🐣🐥🐔🐧🦃🦅🦆🦉🕊🦢🦜🦚

One way of ordering them is taking their
underlying string representations (which
are Unicode code points) and putting these
strings into alphabetical order.

🐓🐔🐣🐤🐥🐦🐧🕊🦃🦅🦆🦉🦚🦜🦢

Another way is to take the names of the
birds as said in English and order them
in alphabetical order this way.

Bird emoji
Chick emoji
Chick in profile emoji
Chicken emoji
Chicken head emoji
Duck emoji
Dove emoji
Eagle emoji
Hatching emoji
Owl emoji
Parrot emoji
Peacock emoji
Penguin emoji
Swan emoji
Turkey emoji

But - and I could go on like this,
organizing by size, colour, shape,
genus, and when they were added to
Unicode - merely ordering these birds
says nothing about the essential question
- because there is an egg emoji - about
which comes first, chicken or egg.