Bird having resources — tail first — to break perch (9)

'break perch' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both animals as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?

'bird having resources tail first to' is the wordplay.
'bird' becomes 'reds' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should believe this answer much more).
'having' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'resources' becomes 'bread' (bread is slang for money).
'tail' means to remove the last letter (I've seen 'tailed' mean this (to tail something can mean to remove its end)).
'first to' becomes 't' (rst letter of 'to').
'bread' with its last letter taken off is 'brea'.
'reds' going around 'brea' is 'redbreas'.
'redbreas'+'t'='REDBREAST'