Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (mainly US) the penis; thus jerk one’s bird, to masturbate; get one’s bird in a splint, to get into (painful) difficulties; gobble someone’s bird, to fellate; how’s your bird? a phrase of greeting.

1768		Gentleman’s Bottle-Companion 14: Here’s the nest in the bush, and the bush’s best friend, / And the bird who his life in that nest loves to spend.
1790		‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 207: Toasts [...] The bird in the hand and then in the bush. The bird in the bush and not in the hand. The bird in the bush and two hard by.
1842		‘Toasts And Sentiments’ in Nobby Songster 47: The bird in the hand and then in the bush.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
1902		D. St John Memoirs of Madge Buford 60: I lay there with two birds in my hand and sure of having them both in my bush.
c.1935		‘Lou Gehrig Goes West’ [comic strip] in B. Adelman Tijuana Bibles (1997) 118: Put that bird in my gilded cage.
1961		C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 32: You ain’t the first woman to be screwed by a bird.
1964		W. Hill One of the Casualties 227: Maybe you got our bird in a splint, you numbskull [HDAS].
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.
1972		Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In [TV script] How’s your bird, baby? [HDAS].
1976		R. Price Blood Brothers 46: He hangs aroun’ gettin’ laid an’ jerkin’ his bird.
1978		H. Selby Jr Requiem for a Dream (1987) 50: Marion hungrily gobbling his bird.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘Don’t tell a soul or I’ll cut your little bird off’.

2. (US) the vagina.

1965		H. Rhodes Chosen Few (1966) 163: Sounds like she didn’t give you that bird yet.
1975		J. Wambaugh Choirboys (1976) 290: I kneel there and look right at her bird.

3. (US gay) fellatio.

1972

B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.