Birds

Birds are small feathered animals with wings. Those most species of birds can fly, there are sadly, a few exceptions to this rule, such as the ostrich and the penguin. Some paleontologists, such as Doctor Alan Grant from the 1993 action film Jurassic Park, believe that birds are actually evolved from dinosaurs.

In fiction
Birds have often played important roles in the realm of horror fiction. Unquestionably, the most famous film portrayal of avians is the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock film The Birds starring Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor. In the film, various species of birds, notably sparrows and seagulls run amok, randomly attacking the citizens of Bodega Bay, California.

A flock of seagulls are seen dining on the blown up remains of Bruce, the killer great white shark, at the end of Steven Spielberg's 1975 classic Jaws. Seagulls are scavengers. They'll eat anything.

In the Hammer House of Horror series pilot, "Witching Time", the character of Mary Winter finds a bloody, dying bird in her bed. Clearly disturbed by this, she has her husband David take the animal outside where he kills it and then buries it. The bird was left in Mary's room by the witch Lucinda Jessup in the hopes of driving her away.

In the 1985 film, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge, the Walsh family find themselves terrorized by several unexplained events that are linked to the power of dream demon Freddy Krueger. In one scene, Freddy causes the heat within their home causing the family's pet parakeet to explode. A mutant version of a bird was part of Anton Arcane's Un-Men on the 1990s television series Swamp Thing. In the season one episode, "Falco", Peter Mark Rochmond played the titular villain who was once a peregrine falcon whose genetic code was manipulated by Anton Arcane, evolving him into a humanoid form. Falco's bird of prey instincts were intact however and he exorcised them by seeking vengeance against Arcane and his minions.

Crows are a type of bird found in the Corvidae family of Avians. They play an integral part in a series of comic books called The Crow, which was developed by James O'Barr. The comics were adapted into a film in 1994, which spawned three sequels and a television series. In the mythology of the story, a crow appears whenever someone has died an unjust death. Through supernatural methods, the crow brings the person back from the dead and imbues them with enhanced physical attributes, which allows them to seek revenge against those responsible for killing them. The crows in these films are the literal resevoirs of power that keep the reborn alive. If a crow is killed, the resurrected individual loses their power and succumbs to death once again.

On the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer, watcher Rupert Giles possesses a thick tome of vampire lore called the Book of Thoth. Thoth was an Ancient Egyptian deity who was often portrayed with the head of an ibis. Ibis are long-legged wading birds that were frequently found along the Nile River and are but one of many animals considered sacred to the Ancient Egyptians.

The DVD Special Features section for the 2007 Rob Zombie remake of Halloween includes an outake of Malcolm McDowell's character, Sam Loomis, showing Deborah Myers photographic evidence of a canary that was apparently raped by her psychopathic son, Michael. The actual seen in the movie involves photographs of dead animals that Michael had apparently killed, but it is unlikely that canary rape is among his nefarious crimes.

In the pilot episode of The Vampire Diaries, a crow is seen observing the actions of main character Elena Gilbert and her friend Bonnie Bennett.

Notes & Trivia

 * A bird wrangler is one who wrangles birds. In film, this refers to a production crew member in charge of the maintenance and upkeep of animals on the set. In the 1963 film The Birds, production crew member John Cardos worked as a bird wrangler. In the 1994 film The Crow, was in charge of handling the crow used in the movie.


 * "Flipping the bird" is a colloquilism for an obscene finger gesture which involves raising a clenched fist with the middle finger extended upward. Though universally used against those whom one is pissed off at, it actually has nothing to do with avians.