The Goofus bird is a mythical, backwards-flying bird, originating in

lumberjack Lumberjacks are mostly North American workers in the logging industry who perform the initial harvesting and transport of trees for ultimate processing into forest products. The term usually refers to loggers in the era (before 1945 in the Unite ...

folklore in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. It is also known variously as the ''Filla-ma-loo bird'' or the ''Flu-fly bird''. The Goofus Bird flies backwards, as it does not care where it's going, only where it's been, and it builds its nest upside down. It is described as having a conspicuous appearance, with a turkey-like head, long green neck, with silver scales, a black right wing and a pink left wing. A person likened to a Goofus Bird is a person low in intellectual curiosity and indifferent to their forward direction. ''Goofus'' is a possible origin of the word ''doofus,'' slang for a person prone to foolishness or stupidity, perhaps influenced by the German word ''doof'', meaning stupid. The Goofus bird is one of many fearsome critters of lumberjack folklore, fantastical beasts that were said to inhabit the frontier wilderness of North America, and is an example of a ' tall tale', a story with unbelievable elements related as if it were factual.

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