- Tuck and Roll: "Tweet-Tweet! Tweet-Tweet!"
- —Tuck and Roll first see the Bird
The Bird is one of the minor antagonists of A Bug's Life.
A Bug's Life
In the film, the Bird is a predator 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 one nearly ate him.
When Flik tries to stop the circus bugs from leaving, he sees one of her feathers, her nest, and her unhatched three eggs inside it nearby and flees. The bird appears, sees them and chases after the bugs for food. Meanwhile, Dot watches on a dandelion seed that breaks off, leaving her in the air as the bird suddenly flies up after her. 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 saving Dot, they fly into the trees with Dim where the Bird is unable to get to them. She then accidentally pricks her feet on the branch's thorns and flies away.
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 Hopper back to the nest where the mother bird encounters Hopper, who mistakes her for another fake and taunts her until she shrieks at him. She then picks him up and feeds him to her three newborn chicks, thus ending Hopper's reign of terror and insult on the ant colony.
Physical Appearance
She appears to be a small finch with orange and yellow feathers, but from the insects' perspectives, she is tremendously huge.
Personality
The Bird is portrayed as neither good nor evil. Like most birds, she is a predator and hunts for food (in this case, bugs) when she's hungry. She feeds Hopper to her newborn chicks when they hatch near the end of the movie.
Trivia
- In one of the outtakes from the film, just before the Bird can eat Heimlich, she breaks down and is revealed to be a large animatronic.
- The Bird was originally stated to be a chaffinch; however, her plumage is brighter and doesn't include wing bars as found in a female chaffinch.
