- Hopper: Well, what's this? Another one of your little bird tricks?
Flik: Yup.
Hopper: Are there a bunch of little girls in this one, too?! Hello, girls! - —Flik tricking Hopper
The Bird is one of the supporting characters in A Bug's Life.
A Bug's Life
"A bug's greatest fear, the bird who nests at the edge of the creek bed, chases Dot, Francis, and the entire circus troupe. The near miss inspires Flik's greatest idea, and becomes his most powerful weapon against Hopper."[1]
In the film, birds are predators to all bugs. It is every bug's worst nightmare to be eaten by a bird, so terrifying that even Hopper is afraid of them and lost his right eye after a blue jay nearly ate him.
The bird within the film is first seen at the opening, flying across the screen within a puddle reflection, just before a leaf drops onto the puddle.
Later, when Flik tries to stop the circus bugs from leaving, he sees a feather, a nest, and three unhatched eggs inside it nearby and flees. The bird suddenly appears out of nowhere and pursues the bugs. Meanwhile, Dot watches on a dandelion seed that breaks off, leaving her in the air as the bird suddenly flies up after her, prompting her to let go of the seed. Francis catches her and they hide in the cracked riverbed, but he is knocked out by a falling rock. Flik convinces the circus bugs to rescue them, while Heimlich and Slim distract the bird. After rescuing Dot and Francis, they fly into a thorny bush with Dim where the Bird is unable to get to them; it pricks its feet on the branch's thorns and flies away, giving up.
The encounter with the bird inspires Flik to put together a plan of constructing a model bird to scare the grasshoppers away when they return to Ant Island. However, when their bird is finally used, P.T. Flea also mistakes it for a real bird and sets it on fire with his Flaming Death act, thereby exposing it to Hopper as a fake. After being rescued by Princess Atta when Hopper tries to fly away with him, Flik lures the grasshopper to the nest where the real bird appears again. Hopper mistakes it for "another one of [Flik's] little bird tricks," and is rudely surprised when it shrieks in his face. When Hopper tries to flee, the Bird snatches him up with and feeds him to the three newborn chicks, thus ending Hopper's reign of terror on the ant colony for good.
Physical Appearance
The Bird is clad in orange and yellow feathers, and appears to the bugs as giant-sized.
Personality
The Bird is portrayed as neither heroic or evil, just as a predator trying to survive by eating any bug on sight. It feeds Hopper to three newborn chicks when they hatch in the film's climax.
Trivia
- The Bird is notable for being the first character to appear in the film.
- The Bird and its offspring also mark the only vertebrates to appear in the film
- In one of the outtakes from the film, just before the Bird can eat Heimlich, it breaks down and is revealed to be a large animatronic.
- According to paleoartist Emily Willoughby, the Bird's plumage marks it as a first-spring male summer tanager.
- Interestingly, juveniles and subadults of related tanager species have been observed helping to rear younger siblings.
Gallery
