He attended Catholic primary and high schools in the Newcastle area.
He joined the formation program of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in 1968 and studied at the Redemptorist seminary at Wendouree near Ballarat for four years before completing his studies at the Yarra Theological Union in Melbourne.
[1] Bird was ordained as a priest on 17 May 1975 and appointed Bishop of Ballarat on 1 August 2012.
[2] In January 2016, Bird became the first bishop in Australia to publicly join a global movement showing support for clergy child sex abuse victims by tying bright coloured ribbons to the Loud Fence outside St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat.
Bird said that "If there is just silence between two people, then one doesn’t know what the other is thinking" and that "This gesture is a way to recognise the suffering and publicly show support to victims, survivors and their families.