Death From Above!

That's what Australians face as the residents of Darwin in the Northern Territories deal with a menace the likes of which cause strong men's hearts to turn to water: drunken lorikeets.

Apparently, the birds eat some kind of fruit or food which contains alcohol and they handle their booze about as well as you might expect in a critter that barely outweighs two Butterfingers and has a correspondingly small brain. Folks who wish to draw comparisons between brightly-colored drunk birds with tiny brains and the average collegian on a spring break trip may do so.

It's a little dangerous for the birdies, though, as alcohol is far more toxic for them than for human beings and causes them significant medical problems much sooner than it does for people. And, lacking opposable thumbs, lorikeets are rarely able to dial 911 when their bro overdoes it and requires a stomach pump. Although noisy and annoying when they've consumed whatever it is that affects them -- again, cue spring break partier comparisons -- a grounded lorikeet is less dangerous in at least one area: Since the birds have a mostly liquid diet, their digested food is removed from their bodies in a mostly liquid form. And if they're airborne or perched up above...well, you know.

I'm pretty sure, though, that I will file the phrase "drunken lorikeet" away for future use to describe someone who's acting like a fool.