“Somebody’s talking out their ass” would be my best guess at a modern approximation. 
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As good a guess as any. My best guess was that I or one of my various siblings or cousins was about to have a tantrum. At one point there were 8 of us, all boys between 3 and 12, living under her roof with our respective parents. I figured the rain was our pending tears and the whistling was us working up to something. So we were the turd-birds? But I’m being very literal and retroactively trying to make sense of something she said in almost any situation. I’ve tried figuring out if anyone else has ever heard it but no takers so far. It may have just been one of her many quirks and was just a thing she thought was fun to say.
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Not everyone agrees with your etymology:
But, according to B. A. Phythian in A Concise Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1993):
This seems improbable: in the sort of household that alone could have afforded such a novelty [= the gramophone] it is unlikely that a sock would be used in the drawing-room.
And he explains:
In a barrack-room, however, socks would certainly be lying around at night and one can imagine a heavy snorer being shouted at and told to ‘ put a sock in it ’ ( in his mouth ). Some such military origin is far more likely.
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Who knows. I wasn’t there. Ha. I suppose you could do one of those searches of usage in literature and chart it with the advent of phonographs. All I know is I have one and it is loud. Annoyingly loud. So much so that I have improvised in such a way.
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Neither have I, but I have heard they’re quite cold. Especially when kept in a brass brassiere.
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That’s what I hear. I have touched the tits of several heretics. I wonder of they are comparable.
Diamonds on My Windshield, from The Heart of Saturday Night
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