Yardbird is a word that has had several informal meanings.
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Prison slang
Yardbird is post-Second World War African American slang for a prisoner, from the notion of prison yards.
Military
During the Second World War, in the armed forces it meant a basic trainee, as they spent most of their time in the yards.
B-17 bombers: Yardbird was the nickname given to two United States Air Force B-17 Flying Fortress bombers which flew combat missions over Europe during the Second World War. Both bombers were based at RAF Molesworth in England, as part of the 303d Bombardment Group (Heavy). Yardbird (41-24602), piloted by captain John W. Farrar (360th Bombardment Squadron), was shot down by flak and German fighter aircraft on 29 May 1943, near Pleubian, France. Yardbird II (42-5620), piloted by 1st Lt. Paul S. Tippet (360th Bombardment Squadron), was shot down by two German fighter aircraft over the North Sea, returning from a successful raid over Emden, on 2 October 1943, with all eleven aboard killed in action.
It was one of the group's most successful bombers having completed over 43 missions.
In the American south
In the Deep South of the United States, yardbird was a colloquialism for the domestic chicken. In one explanation for American saxophonist Charlie Parker's nickname being "Yardbird", jazz trombonist and blues singer Clyde E. B. Berhardt in his autobiography I Remember: Eighty Years of Black Entertainment, Big Bands, states:
[Parker] told me he got the name Yardbird because he was crazy about eating chicken: fried, baked, boiled, stewed, anything. He liked it. Down there in the South, all chickens are called yardbirds. Every house has some.
Jazz pianist Jay McShann backs up the story in an interview in 1999:
Charlie [Parker] yelled, 'Back up. You hit a yardbird!' He got out of the car and got it and carried the chicken on into Lincoln. He had it cooked and ate it all in one sitting.
Other use
Yardbird was the name of a Usenet child pornography ring, an approximate third of whose members were arrested in 2006; the eponymous leader remains at large.