Name the bird before us (5)
I believe the answer is:
titus
'name' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I don't see?
'the bird before us' is the wordplay.
'the bird' becomes 'tit' (tit is a kind of bird**).
'before' says to put letters next to each other.
'tit'+'us'='TITUS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for titus that I've seen before include "Only part of Shakespeare play" , ". . . . . Andronicus, Shakespearean tragedy" , "Roman emperor - one of St Paul's correspondents" , "good book" , "& 20 Mervyn Peake character" .)