This is Bird Note.

The bearded reedling is a wetland songbird that's enjoying a boom in both population and popularity.

The birds have rufous bodies, a light gray cap, and white faces.

But bearded reedlings are named for the male's striking black facial markings that resemble

a Foo Manchu mustache, or maybe make up for the rock band kiss.

It gives the bird a stern expression at odds with their diminutive size.

Barely larger than a chickadee, the male reedlings are often photographed with their feathers

puffed out to near

spherical proportions, the spindly legs grasping parallel stalks as if performing the splits.

These images are so delightful that search results for roundest bird in the world serve up a gallery

of reedlings.

The internet's favorite borb is also a remarkable comeback story.

Reedlings breed across much of Europe and Central Asia, but in the United Kingdom where they're called bearded tits, a confluence of harsh winters and habitat loss, reduced their numbers to just two pairs by the 1940s.

Thanks to decades of intensive reedbed restoration and the bird's capacity to rear several broods in a season,

there are now more than 600 breeding pairs of bearded reedlings in the UK today.

So don't be fooled by that adorable scowl. These wetland wonders can give us all something to

cheer for. For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.