yardbirds are chickens. When Charlie Parker was on tour, driving to or from Omaha, strangely enough, a mess of yardbirds ran across the road, and the driver couldn't stop, so they killed a bunch of them. Parker, being a true negro, insisted the driver stop, and picked the dead chickens up off the road, and took them to the next gig, where they were cooked. That's how he got the nickname yardbird, and the group The Yardbirds were named after him.
He was a hecka bad herion addict, yeah. Him and Dizzy G were gods among men. They invented BeBop because they got tired of Onestep's grandpa coming into their negro clubs in Harlem, and straight ripping off their stuff. They played faster and faster till Hymen Stepberg could no longer transcribe what they were playing.