ok. from your example, it appears you're creating a calculated field in a
query. try the following, as

Event: Format([Birthday], "d mmm")

btw, rather than creating a Month field and a Day field in the query to sort
on, you can get the same month/day sort with the following calculated field,
as

SortBy: Format([Birthday],"mmdd")

hth

You can get both constraints met by using one calculated field:

HappyHappy: DateSerial(Year(Date()), Month([Birthday]),
Day([Birthday]))

Sort it directly (it will sort chronologically by birthday
anniversary), and set its Format property to "d mmm".

You can't easily get 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. without a fair bit of VBA code
- there's no simple Format setting to do so.

                 John W. Vinson[MVP]

To display the date of birth as 1st Jan:

Copy and Paste the below function into a new module.

Public Function DateOrdinalEnding(DateIn, MoIn As String)
' Will add an Ordinal ending to a date, i.e. 13th Jan, 2nd Feb, etc.
' MoIn determines Month Format, i.e. "mmm" for "Feb" or "mmmm" for
"February"

If IsNull(DateIn) Then
   DateOrdinalEnding = ""
   Exit Function
End If
Dim dteX As String
dteX = DatePart("d", DateIn)

dteX = dteX & Nz(Choose(IIf((Abs(dteX) Mod 100) \ 10 = 1, 0,
Abs(dteX)) Mod 10, "st", "nd", "rd"), "th")

DateOrdinalEnding = dteX & Format(DateIn, " " & MoIn)
End Function
==================

You can call it from a query:
BirthdayOn:DateOrdinalEnding([DateOfBirth],"mmm")

or directly in a report or on a form, using an unbound text control:
=DateOrdinalEnding([DateOfBirth],"mmm")