Bird People

"The Rito resided in a settlement on the Tabantha Frontier. These feathery folk were blessed with the ability to glide upon the wind, and they were adept with bow and arrow."

— King Rhoam, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

The bird equivalent of Lizard Folk and Fish People: a race of avian humanoids. Specifically this means a coat of feathers, a beak, scaly legs, talons, etc.

They typically have some or all the biological features of birds — hollow bones, good eyesight, fast reflexes, fast metabolism, egg-laying, enhanced vocal power or control, etc. The arms are typically scaly talons like the feet and sometimes wings may be present as a third pair of limbs; less commonly the wings are the arms and the hands are either claws or Feather Fingers. Females may suffer from Non-Mammal Mammaries.

Bird People are found in fantasy and science fiction alike. They are frequently a Proud Warrior Race. They'll often be called "avians", some derivative of that word, or "tengu" after a similar creature in Japanese Mythology. Because of the tactical advantage conferred by avian biology (flight, enhanced reflexes) they're usually balanced by making them physically weak (often due to the hollow bones necessary for flight). In video games, they tend to be Glass Cannons. Being able to fly also allows them to control vast territorial ranges, so they are rarely depicted forming large cities or centralized societies as other races do.

Sub-Trope of Beast Man. Compare and contrast Winged Humanoid (essentially human except for wings), Harping on About Harpies (half-bird/half-human in varying degrees), Bat People (for another kind of winged humanoid), and The Mothman (a cryptid said to resemble a bird-like humanoid).

It should be noted that, since birds are very common in Talking Animal fiction, examples should be limited to those that are clearly meant to be an entire species of bird-like humanoids as opposed to an anthropomorphic version of a real bird.

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Examples

Advertising

• Similar commercials having the theme of people flying like migrating birds:
  • The Breeze shopping area, Indonesia
  • Visit Florida
  • Atlantis the Palm, Dubai
  • Distrito M, Montevideo, Uruguay
  • Entel, Peru

Anime & Manga

• Beastars: This being a World of Funny Animals, there are naturally a few of these spread about, most notably Aoba, an eagle who happens to be a member of the drama club the protagonist Legosi is a member of.
• Digimon has a number of Digimon based on birdlike beings, from Biyomon's Ultimate/Perfect-level form Garudamon, the tengu-based Karatenmon to Falcomon's Mega-level form Ravemon.
• Chicken George, the protagonist of Fourteen, is a vengeful chicken man born from a mutant lump of chicken flesh from an Artificial Meat-growing factory.
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1999): The Watarara are large, humanoid birds that migrate over Hyrule once a year. They're born wingless and develop their wings as they age, and youngsters ride on their parents' backs until the can fly. Their designs served as inspirations for the Rito, the birdlike race from the later games.
• Mashin Hero Wataru Series: One of Wataru's companions for part of the series, Kurama is this. Unlike most other examples, he was originally a human cursed by the main villain and spends half of the first series as a spy to regain his human form.
• Ranma ½: The Mt. Phoenix tribe. The Valley of Cursed Springs, Jusenkyo, is dotted with pools in which many distinct creatures drowned; each spring is thus cursed so that whoever falls in it will turn into that creature whenever splashed with cold water. But there is another Jusenkyo high atop the mountains over the valley, so remote and inaccessible only birds have reached it, and drowned in its pools. For hundreds, if not thousands of years, the mountain people who would become the Mt. Phoenix tribe used this water for everyday life — cooking, laundry, drinking, etc., and instead of instantly turning into birds, they eventually mutated to sprout massive, flight-worthy wings, scaly talons instead of hands and feet, avian instincts, and even affinity with birds of the species they were "descended" from (falcon-like individuals get along with falcons, crow-descended ones can command crows, etc.) They are fiercely isolationist, so that even other Jusenkyo-adjacent tribes and villages believe it's only a myth, but it does occasionally send spies and soldiers into the human world to infiltrate it, using Jusenkyo water to transform into ordinary humans. They have a rigid caste and military structure and a single immortal king that dies and is reborn and whose main purpose is to provide endless heat and light to his subjects. The entire culture lives or dies by the availability of Jusenkyo water, since their powerless, infant king cannot transform into a fully-powered adult without it, and if their wells and springs run dry, the tribe will do anything to their water back.
• Shinzo has the Bird Enterrans, although they vary in their degree of anthropomorphism. Most of the mooks are very birdlike, but Lord Caris is halfway to human with feathers covering only part of his body, talons for feet and a human face with a beak, and Queen Rusephine is a Winged Humanoid.

Comic Books

• The DCU:
  • The Feitherans, whom the Golden Age Hawkman has befriended and from whom came Norda Cantrell (Northwind) of Infinity, Inc..
  • Legends of the Dead Earth:
    • In Batman annual #20, it is believed that the Scarecrow was an actual bird person who was hired by the food controllers of Old Gotham to scare away the birds that were eating their crops. The Scarecrow was so good at his job that he soon became the Lord and Master of the Gotham food area.
    • In the Green Lantern annual #5 story "Nobler in the Mind", the Green Lantern El'qa Squa Zreenah is badly injured in a space battle with the Statejians, one of the most powerful and dangerous races in the universe, and he is forced to retreat to the planet Qualar IV. He finds that the planet is inhabited by a sentient race of avians who resemble giant chickens.
  • The Superman story arc The Leper from Krypton has the Knorrians, a race of avian, yellow-feathered humanoids with scaly legs and sharp talons.
• The Lian aliens are a race of bird people in the comic book adaptation of Farscape.
• In The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1992), Roam can turn into a humanoid bird at will in the Dark World.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Howard the Duck has a long and complicated history, but is in most versions from a planet of anthropomorphic ducks.
  • X-Men:
    • The Shi'ar are bird people, although generally the only sign of it is their weird hair, which is actually feathers. Occasionally you'll see one with wings or talons, such as Deathbird.
    • Barnell Bohusk/Beak from New X-Men was a mutant with an avian appearance, most notably a beak-like mouth and feathered/scaled arms which gave him the ability to slow a fall if he really tried. He's an example of a really debilitating mutation. One of his kids gets off easier by growing into an imposing eagle-man, with a body covered in feathers, a powerful curved beak, talons for feet, and powerful wings that made him an excellent flier.
    • In Ultimate X Men, when Angel takes a power-enhancing Psycho Serum, he gains an eagle head and talons for hands and feet.
• The Teppan from Tyson Hesse's Diesel. To drive it home, they're also referred to as "birdmen".

Fan Works

• Sacrifice (Ravenshell):
  • Carlos Chiang O'Brien Gambe seems to have been turned into a mutant-cockatoo when the Megarift occured.
  • According to Casey, the Purple Dragons were all turned into mutant-chickens.
  • Esther, or "Ace" as Leo comes to call her, was mutated into a mutant-duck.
• Vow of Nudity: Squawk, a minor antagonist encountered in a single story, is a half-witted corvid cultist who can only repeat the last few words of whatever someone just said to her. (Yet she somehow still manages to carry on coherent conversations with different characters about a variety of topics.)

Film — Animated

• Doraemon: Nobita and the Winged Braves has the gang entering a portal leading from Tokyo to Birdopia, a world populated by sentient bird-people with wings on their backs, with an Acrophobic Bird child named Gusuke becoming the gang's new friend and most of the film revolving around the gang trying to help Gusuke fly.
• The Warrior Forms of Atzi, Tetzin, and Elmer and Garras in The Guardians of the Lost Code are humanoid birds; Atzi in her warrior form looks like a female humanoid hummingbird, while Tetzin looks like a very beautiful humanoid women eagle, while Elmer and Garras take on the warrior form of a powerful demonic humanoid hummingbird.

Film — Live-Action

• Batman Returns controversially gave the Penguin this treatment, after director Tim Burton expressed dissatisfaction with the more traditional depiction of "a guy in a tuxedo". Since the template was of a flightless bird, Danny DeVito's costume consisted of a stout, blubbery body; hands shaped almost like flippers; a nose that curved forward like a beak; beady eyes sheathed by dark, avian eyelids; almost-reptilian teeth; and a shock of long, thin, stringy hair (which, with a little imagination, could be likened to feathers) sprouting from an otherwise bald head.
• In Blood Freak, Herschel is transformed into a being with a turkey's head in place of his own and a thirst for the blood of drug addicts.
• The Skeksis in The Dark Crystal are a race of more or less humanoid vulture-like creatures, though Word of God also claims reptilian aspects made into their design. Their counterparts, the Mystics, look like toothed, deep-billed emus.
• Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves features an aarakocra named Jarnathan in the opening scene, who is then used by Edgin and Holga to escape Revel's End by throwing themselves with Jarnathan out of a nearby window and forcing him to slow their fall.
• Melissa from The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein is the result of a bird egg impregnated with human semen. She's naked save for some strategically placed feathers along her arms and torso (although she's apparently flightless), and she feasts on human flesh.
• The Hawkmen in Flash Gordon (1980) are flying winged people (though only the men are shown flying).
• Howard the Duck, adapted from the comic of the same name and famous for being So Bad, It's Good, has a glimpse of Howards planet made of anthropomorphic ducks as himself. Howard has also made some cameos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Gamebooks

• Birdmen are a recurring enemy type in the Fighting Fantasy series of books. Caverns of the Snow Witch has a powerful birdman as a Skill 12 Climax Boss (his Skill is high because he can fly, while you're standing unsteadily on a muddy marsh) while they come back in Fangs of Fury, Daggers of Darkness, Stealer of Souls and Stormslayer as minor encounters.
• The quest of the four-part epic adventure, Sorcery! is in fact kicked off when the birdmen serving the Archmage of Mampang steals the sacred Crown of Kings, and the hero, the Champion of Analand, must set off on a lengthy quest to retrieve the crown. In the fourth book when the hero finally reaches the Mampang Fortress, the then finds out there's a La Résistance of lawful birdmen against the Archmage's tyranny — after defeating the Archmage, the hero then enlists the assistance of a birdman ally named Peewit Croo to fly him all the way back home.

Literature

• The Haspur in Bardic Voices are anthropomorphic eagles who excel at singing.
• BattleTech Expanded Universe: In the novel Far Country, the Tetatae are an intelligent species of pre-industrial flightless birds, with claws where wings would be. They're largely pacifistic, avoiding conflict, and are largely hunter-gatherers despite maintaining fields. They never appear in the greater universe, as their system was only found from a malfunction Blind Jump that totaled the JumpShip, stranding the crew in the system.
• There is a species of bird-like people in Damsels of Distress called pteranthropes. They have avian wings growing out of their lower backs that are fully functional and they have talons in place of humanoid feet. There are three sub-species of pteranthrope with boreads, tengus, and garudas.
• The Edge Chronicles have shrykes, a nasty example of the trope. Both genders are flightless, but female shrykes are larger and more aggressive, usually working as vicious warriors and slavers. The smaller and weaker males are often treated like slaves themselves.
• The horowitzes in Philip José Farmer's series of Father Carmody stories. These birdlike creatures attach their eggs to hosts (including John Carmody) who will hatch them. Father Carmody provides them with spoken language and a quasi-religious ritual of thanksgiving.
• Kadingir: The Anzuds are nomad humanoid birds with outstanding empathic senses and unbridled joie de vivre. They are the only race in their planet with the ability to fly.
• Lafayette O'Leary: In The Shape Changer, the second person O'Leary experiences a "Freaky Friday" Flip with is a bird-like humanoid from a nearby universe.
• In The Listeners by James E. Gunn, a major breakthrough comes when a part of the alien signal is discovered to be an image — and the image is a winged, bird-like creature with multiple arms.
• Mysterious Ways: A Divine Comedy: Dragons, angels, and 'cubi (succubi/incubi) are all completely avian (and mortal) sapient species.
  • The dragons were the first species to gain sapience and culture. Originally, they had only four limbs (two legs, two wings), but through a combination of scientific knowledge and magical ability, they guided their evolution to give themselves a pair of arms (orginally extra, abnormally small, wings).
  • The angels — despite their insistence on their own divine origin — descended from the dragons, and evolved a more human-like appearance to gain the trust of humans.
  • The 'cubi are closely related to the angels, the main differences being their shapeshifting ability, culture, and skills in the bedroom.
  • Though all three species are capable of using magic, they do not rely on magic for flight (or fire-breathing). This is part of the reason that they're smaller than humans (around four feet tall), as flight is far easier for smaller creatures.
• Perdido Street Station has Yagharek, a member of a race of bird people called the Garuda.
• Play Places: Lanmia are humanoids with feathers, hollowed bones, and beaks.
• Revelation Space has the extinct civilisation of the "Amarantine", who once inhabited an Earth-like (and now dead) planet orbiting Delta Pavonis. The first chapter of the novel starts at an archaeological dig of an Amarantine settlement. Amarantine skeletons are noted to be rather humanoid, and their skulls are apparently somewhat crested. As the novel progresses, mysteries surrounding the extinction of the species start pointing to a larger enigma behind the novel's overarching story.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Han Solo at Star's End includes an appearance by a member of the Lafrarian species, who is described as basically being a "bird-man". West End Games (the Star Wars d6 roleplaying-game resource) later clarified that Lafrarians are an avian species who had lost their wings (though their arms are still very wing-shaped) but retained their beaked noses and covering of feathers on the head (which, in their attempt to look more humanoid, they style to look more like '80s Hair).
  • New Jedi Order has Vergere, who is a Fosh. She is a feathered avian creature with a bird like head, including the beak, and scaly clawed feet.
• The Ythrians in Technic History. They are carnivorous HunterPoets rather like eagles. One of the more notable things about them is an organ designed to pump extra oxygen into the wings to give them more lift.
• In the Terran Confederacy universe, the Volerans, the second alien species humanity meets and the first with their own FTL empire, are broadly avian, resembling colorful eyeless ostriches.
• The Psittacans from Xandri Corelel resemble giant, flightless parrots.

Live-Action TV

• Hawk, introduced in the second season of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century as Token Non-Human is Last of His Kind from a race of bird people.
• One episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures stars the Shansheeth, an alien race of vulture people who act as galactic undertakers.
• Sesame Street gives us the famous character of Big Bird.
• Star Trek:
  • The Sixth Xindi race from Star Trek: Enterprise was the Avians, a race of bird people who are extinct by the time of the series. We only see one of their skulls, but given the huge variation in Xindi bodies, it's not too difficult to assume they were birdlike in appearance.
  • The blue bird-like Betelgeusians who appear in Star Trek: Discovery.
• Ultra Series:
  • The Ultramen were originally going to be these◊, based on Garuda and the Tengu. However, this was scrapped when it was decided the heroes needed to look less monstrous than the villains to make it clear who was on what side.
  • The Guts from Ultraseven are a race of parrot-headed aliens who stand as among Ultraseven's most dangerous foes due to their Doppelgänger Attack powers, penchant for Teleport Spam, and ability to fire paralyzing Eye Beams.

Myths, Religion & Folklore

• The Chickcharney, a being from Caribbean folklore, is said to be a humanoid owl claimed to inhabit the dense forests of the Bahamas. Common tales state that, if a traveler treats one of these creatures well, they will be rewarded with good luck, whereas mistreating a chickcharney results in bad luck and hard times. Some believe that the legend behind this creature may have been inspired by persistent populations of Tyto pollens, an extinct, flightless species of barn owl which measured 1 meter in height and was native to Andros Island.
• Chinese Mythology: According to the Huainanzi (淮南子) and the Shanhaijing (山海經/山海经, "The Classic of Mountains and Seas") texts, two of the "36 Overseas Nations" (海外三十六國/海外三十六国) classify as this:
  • The Nation of Feathered People (羽民國/羽民国, Yǔmín'guó). Their people are described to have long and sharp heads with beaks, white hair, and red eyes, and are hatched from eggs. They are also said to have wings on their backs, but cannot fly far.
  • The Nation of the Cheerful-Headed (讙頭國/讙头国, Huāntóuguó). Their people are said to be half-man and half-bird, having human faces with beaks and wings, but are flightless and have to hold their wings like crutches to walk.
• Classical Mythology:
  • In early myths, sirens were women with bird-like traits, but because the stories always feature them at the seaside, later depictions tend to make them fish-like instead.
  • Harpies are also a mix of birds and women, with the degree of anthropomorphism varying over time.
  • In a legend involving Alexander the Great, as he is marching his army through India, he is attacked by a tribe of anthropomorphic birdmen that took after ravens. They assaulted his troops with spears and projectiles, killing around 300 foot soldiers and several cavalry men before he managed to defeat them. In a lot of ways, they bear a strong similarity to wingless kenku from Dungeons & Dragons.
• In Egyptian Mythology, Horus, Ra and Thoth were gods with avian heads.
• Garuda from Hindu Mythology, sworn enemy of the Nagas and Vishnu's mount. His name also appears in Buddhist myth as that of an entire race.
• Sometimes the tengu from Japanese Mythology is depicted as a bird-headed humanoid and other times as a bird-human hybrid, although a confused history and the ability to shapeshift has led to it having a wide variety of different forms.
• Contrary to the name implying an insect-like creature, The Mothman was frequently described as resembling a large, distressingly-humanlike bird, to the point that many skeptics have argued that what people were seeing were likely large owls or sandhill cranes (the latter being both fairly tall and usually standing upright in a way that can make them look rather humanoid). Many reports even outright say the creature had feathers.

Tabletop Games

• The Chronicles of Aeres:
  • The Ravenvir, a race of humanoid ravens, are notable as the only species of avian Wilderkind. They even get a unique racial statblock, rather than being folded into the generic Wilderkind profile. In their mythology, they descend from two ravens who served the beast-god Tolgamyr by seeking out knowledge from the wider world and sharing it to the isolated deity; eventually, he turned them and a flock of their fellows into humanoids so they could more readily roam the world and learn things to tell him.
  • The expansion "The Doom That Came to Astreas" adds the Orinvir, an arrogant race of humanoid eagles warped from a once-glorious human nation that inhabited the western mountains of Astreas. They're known for their martial prowess, their flourishing civilization that has never been conquered, and their Byzantine internal politics.
• Crimestrikers: Jeff "Top" Ranking, one of the heroes, is a common kestrel.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • The aarakocra are a humanoid bird species with wings. Traditionally they've been more on the bird side than the humanoid side, with claws on their wings instead of separate arms and wings, which forced them to use their feet to carry things and throw javelins while flying. 5th Edition changed this and gave separate arms and wings for six limbs in total. Aarakocra also have a long association with the good powers of Elemental Air, so that a group of five of aarakocra can summon an air elemental by chanting and flying through an aerial dance for three minutes.
  • Dire corbies are huge black bipedal birds about the height of a human being, and live underground. They have birdlike heads and feet, and their hands end in claws. They hunt in flocks, running down their hapless victims while emitting horrifying shrieks.
  • The dohwar, from Spelljammer, are a race of sentient, telepathic, starfaring penguins. They fancy themselves a Proud Merchant Race, but they're kind of endearingly bad at it, as their typical sales pitch is to meet a potential customer in a back alley — even if what they're selling is perfectly legal — and then rapidly recite their inventory, while also offering to buy things off their customer.
  • Kenku, who are birds in a humanoid shape. They wield quarterstaffs or katanas, and some can cast wizard spells, and are excellent mimics of sound and voices. Their reputation is that of a race of thieves and criminals. Unusually for the trope, they are flightless.
  • Owlin are (as you'd guess) a race of wise humanoid owls who hail from Arcavios, home plane of the Strixhaven Academy of Adventure. They have an owl's face, talons for hands and feet and large, angel-like owl wings on their back. Some are nocturnal, while others just stay up late.
  • The Raptorans are a race invented for Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition who really favor the "people" aspect of the equation, resembling humans with bird wings who lay eggs. They are the descendants of a human cult devoted to the Elemental Lords of Air, who received their avian traits as part of a pact of loyalty. They initially hatch as poor flyers, and mature fledglings are formally exiled from their homes until they grow strong enough to be able to fly at will. To compensate for the high attrition rate, raptorans are characterized as Explosive Breeders; raptoran woman produce an everage of 4 eggs a year, and are fertile until the age of 150.
  • The Kyrie are a race from Dragonlance who were created when the Graygem of Chaos fused a bird-admiring culture of humans with the birds they loved so much, creating beings who have humanoid bodies and faces, but bird-like legs, a full-body covering of plumage, and arms that also double as wings. They devoted themselves to Chislev, the Goddess of Nature, who gave them a magical artifact called the Northstone, which enhanced their ability to find directions. With its aid, they pursued a nomadic existence across the islands and coastlines of northeast Ansalon; that all changed when they entered the territory of Krynn's minotaurs on the isles of Mithas & Kothas; the bull-men stole the Northstone, and stranded the kyrie on those islands. Ever since then, they have fought a guerrilla war against the minotaurs, considering them their bitterest enemies — not helped by the fact that the minotaurs consider kyrie eggs a delicacy.
• Exalted:
  • Hawkmen are common beastmen throughout the East. Numerous distinct breeds exist, generally as the result of independent Lunar breeding programs, which can vary greatly in appearance. The Haltan hawkmen, for instance, resemble clawed humans with hawk wings and heads, while the ones of the flying island of Mount Metagalapa are much more avian, with only four limbs and clawed hands growing from their wings. Other types of avian beastman, such as owlmen, also exist.
  • The alaun were flightless, crane-like avians that and one of the many mortal species crafted by the Primodials in ancient times. They did little besides worship and sing praises to the Primordials, and were killed to the last when the Exalted rebelled. A few of their ghosts still linger in the Underworld, and bitterly hate all humans.
  • Unju are peculiar creatures resembling entirely featherless humanoid birds with batlike wings. They're native to Malfeas, where they roost in tall spires and sometimes agree to fly demons from place to place.
• Fading Suns: The Etyri are an avian species known for morbid attitudes and extreme racial diversity (ie. they have an eagle race, a songbird race and so on). Their homeworld is one of the two known planets that developed six-limbed animal life.
• Magic: The Gathering: The aven are humanoid birds present in several planes. They typically resemble generic birds of prey like eagles and hawks, but owl, vulture, crow and ibis-like forms are also known; they are typically aligned with White and Blue mana (on the plane of Amonkhet, the color they align to actually determines whether they resemble hawks or ibises, respectively), with the Grixis vulture-like Kathari being an exception, aligned with Black mana instead. Most have six limbs — two wings, two arms, two legs — and mostly avian body plans, with some exceptions such as the aven from Tarkir — which have just four limbs, with the forelimbs being both the arms and wings — and those from Amonkhet — which resemble otherwise normal humans with bird heads and wings.
• Pathfinder has the corvine tengu, the owlish strix and syrinx, and the India-inspired garuda. The patron deity of the tengu, Hei Feng, takes the form of a raven-like tengu with glowing eyes.
• Rifts:
  • The Aviane, or Bird Men, are humanoid D-Bees with avian wings and feathered necks and heads. They come from a world of high crags and deep canyons, and on Earth mostly live in the Rocky Mountains and the canyonlands of Arizona. Those Aviane that live in cities mostly live in the upper floors of high-rise buildings, or in the tops of ruined skyscrapers.
  • The South American Republic of Achilles has genetically engineered a number of humanoid bird people, generally resembling man-sized birds with humanoid stances and wing-hands, for various purposes, such as the Condoroids used as field agents. The Loronoids, based on macaws, were less successful; they were intended to be translators and number-crunchers, but were too restless and easily bored for such repetitive tasks and fled en masse, quickly spreading throughout the Amazon, Central America and the Caribbean.
  • The Lyn-Srial are an odd example — they're eagle-headed, four-armed humanoids whose wings (attached to their upper pair of arms) are batlike membranes rather than avian feathered limbs.
• The Splinter: The Arventine can shapeshift into humanoids with feathers and talons. They can also become giant birds of prey.
• Warhammer 40,000: Averted with the Kroot: they're descended from a birdlike species, but standard Kroot have no wings or feathers, instead having long quills on the backs of their heads and hollow bones. One of their most unique features is the ability of their Shapers to remodel their DNA based on what they eat, with Kroot eating too much of one species being locked into that state (which is what happened to the wolflike Kroothounds and apelike Krootox). Other subspecies include a feathered Kroot that can glide or the massive Knarlocs, who pretty much only exist to give players an excuse to field a Tyrannosaurus rex.
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse has the Corax wereravens who, like most of the setting's werecreatures, can take the form of an animal (a raven in their case of course), a human or the "war form", a large and powerful combination of the two. Notably however the Corax mostly avoid taking their war form partially because they are messengers and spies, not warriors, fighting is the werewolves' job, but also because most people, including the Corax themselves, think their bird man form looks absurd and it's embarrassing to change into it.

Video Games

• Epsilon-Eagle, the protagonist of Alien Soldier, is a wingless birdman, although he has steel wings to compensate for this.
• Arrogation: Unlight of Day has a creepy raven-man monster resembling a crow-headed humanoid with gigantic wings pursuing you at random points. Luckily, despite having wings, it can't fly.
• The Aviants from Battleborn are anthropomorphic bird aliens who originally come from the Menneck B system before the Varelsi darkened their star. They come in a variety of subspecies and are generally categorized as either flyers or flightless Aviants. Among these Aviants include:
  • Benedict who is a Buteonen Aviant, a hawk bird man with wings as a third extra set of limbs. He battles enemies with a rocket launcher despite one of his wings being shattered and only capable of limited flight with the assistance of an Aviary Exosuit.
  • Toby who is a cute little Finisci Aviant, essentially an anthropomorphic penguin that looks no different than a regular one complete with thumbless flippers and all. Although ridiculously cute, much to his chagrin, the little fella is a force to be reckoned with, as he rides his Mini-Mecha "Berg" into battle to devastate opponents.
  • Pendles' left-handed kama is made from the bones of a Kormiri Aviant he killed in the past, in particular using his previous target's skull and beak for the scythe's head and sickle. While it's not been fully explained what exactly a Kormiri Aviant is, Pendles' lore includes Benedict referring to the Kormiri that Pendles killed as an "old Pel".
  • Ernest is a short pudgy pink bird man with talon arms who serves as a Demolitions Expert and sergeant. Although not immediately evident, he has mechanical folding wings which he carries on his back that provide him a bit of a glide. It's not a true glide in the same sense as that of Benedict's though and Ernest's still considered a flightless Aviant either way.
• Reiji's crow form from Bloody Roar. An example of a non-Glass Cannon fighter, as Reiji is more of a Lightning Bruiser and battling with him is somewhat like trying to fight a giant blender.
• Bound by Blades has General Garoth, the hawk-man commander of Fangsfate City.
• The Cube Escape series has Mr. Crow and Mr. Owl, bird-headed humanoids shrouded in mystery, Surreal Horror, and Blue-and-Orange Morality.
• Dark Souls:
  • The Crow Demons from Dark Souls are a malicious and semi-sentient form, but Ornifex from Dark Souls II shows that they may be capable of higher thought but simply choose not to engage you.
  • Dark Souls III has the Corvians, who may or may not be descendants of the Crow Demons. Most of them attack on sight, in such a way that it appears they are terrified of the player character, while the ones within the Painted World are suffering and going hollow from the rot. A handful of them are friendly and advise the player to bring fire to the Painting to solve this issue.
• Digimon World DS has Chronomon, an incredibly powerful humanoid bird Digimon. It's first encountered as Chronomon Destroy Mode, a predatory-looking bird-man that's Red and Black and Evil All Over. After its defeat, reverts to its natural form, Chronomon Holy Mode, and can be fought as a Superboss. The latter is also obtainable in Digimon World Dawn/Dusk by fusing the humanoid Susanoomon with the avian Valdurmon. Digimon Story: Lost Evolution would later introduce a full evolution line for Chronomon consisting of increasingly anthropomorphic bird samurai.
• Tengu, a playable race in Dungeon Crawl. They possess beaks and clawed feet but no wings, although they gain magical flight after gaining enough experience in the dungeon. Being a Proud Warrior Race, they have excellent aptitudes for all skills relating to combat, but their avian bodies are somewhat frail, making them Glass Cannons. They were originally named Kenku after the bird race from Dungeons & Dragons, but this was changed to Tengu in a later version.
• Dwarf Fortress:
  • A wide variety of bird people exists, with quite literally every variety of bird in the game (and there are plenty) having an anthropomorphic variant in addition to a giant one, in the form of an egg-laying humanoid with the head of its bird counterpart and the ability to fly. That being said, these don't count as full intelligent races in-game, as they don't form civilizations, don't wear clothing, and are generally just bipedal animals, although they can be adopted by an established civilization and adopt the behavior and values of its members.
  • There are also cave swallow men, one of the intelligent but still primitive underground races of tribal animal people, and the only one able to fly besides antman drones.
• In the backstory of The Elder Scrolls, there existed a race of "Bird Men" native to the islands that would become the Imperial City Isle in central Cyrodiil. It is said that they had feathers of glorious colors, talons for feet, and were capable of flight. Like the other Beast Races of Tamriel, they were apparently intelligent, as Aldmeri explorers were able to teach them to speak and write. Unfortunately, they, along with whatever it is they called themselves, were lost to history when they were rendered extinct by "cat demons," believed by modern scholars to have been the ancient Khajiit.
• The Talortai, the species of Urai Fen in Empire at War: Forces of Corruption.
• The Hissho from Endless Space were uplifted from Velociraptor-analogues by a decadent civilization to fight as gladiators. They lived as hunter-gatherers on the plains and developed a culture centered on honourable warfare and veneration of the sun god (think Samurai meets the Aztecs). They are aggressive and competitive, and on top of being fearsome warriors on the ground, their innate instincts for flight make them excellent pilots.
• Evolution: The Game of Intelligent Life: "Parrot Men" are one of the possible "intelligent" species you can reach, being humanoids with feathers evolved from birds.
• In E.V.O.: Search for Eden, after the dinosaurs are wiped out, the player can find a society of bird people living in a fortress in the sky.
• The Ixal from Final Fantasy XIV are vicious race of flightless avian beastmen who worship the mad wind elemental Garuda. Since they cannot fly, they travel in the air with hot air balloons. Heavensward introduces a second avian beastmen race called the Vanu Vanu, who are very portly while having the muscle to back it up and they worship a whale-like water/wind god named Bismarck. The Vanu Vanu are also a Proud Warrior Race and they perform the Sundrop Dance to show off their strength and intimidate their opponents. Like the Ixali, the Vanu Vanu cannot fly and they ride serpentine creatures that can fly.
• Tengu from Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. In the first game, they are scattered across Tyria and Cantha and, due to being harassed by the other races, are almost universally hostile. Between the two games, the scattered tribes unite and build an isolated kingdom to avoid further abuse.
• In Hyper Light Drifter, the denizens of the Northern region are anthropomorphic crows or vultures. Some of them can fly, but the rest appear to have given up the ability in exchange for ambiguously magical powers.
• Inazuma Eleven: The inhabitants of the planet Gurdon from the sixth game are humanoid birds who can fly. The captain of Gurdon Eleven, Arbega, resembles an owl. He is also part of the pro-machine faction, having traded his wings for mechanical arms, so his arms function a lot more like human limbs.
• Krut: The Mythic Wings has the titular Kruts, eagle-headed humanoids who are warriors and fighters defending their homes. You play as one named Veera who's seeking a set of silver armour, the titular Mythic Wings, to defeat a powerful warlord.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: In the final palace of the Thunderbird, his servants are the Fokka and Fokkeru (both from "Vogel", a German word meaning "bird"). The Fokka are male eagle knights with talon arms instead of wings to wield their sword, and shield. The Fokkeru are the females of the Fokka with actual wings, and Non-Mammal Mammaries, they shoot fireballs instead of swordfighting like their male counterparts. Being placed there by the King in ancient times to ensure only the worthy would get the Triforce of Courage, the Fokka, and Fokkeru are not actually evil, and just await a true hero to overcome them.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, the Rito^note They have a Punny Name. It's an anagram of "tori", which means "bird" in Japanese, as well as a reference to Ruto, one of their ancestors. people are feathered humanoids with beaks who gain wings on adulthood when they receive a scale from the dragon that acts as their guardian deity. They are descendants of the Zora, a race of Fish People who were transformed by the gods after The Great Flood so that the Great Ocean could remain mostly lifeless, likely as a way to keep the flooded kingdom of Hyrule hidden. Also, the Wizzrobe enemies, while normally just men in cloaks, are redesigned as Toucans with colorful beaks and wing-arms visible underneath their cloaks. This is part because the Wizzrobes' original art in the early games, when brightened up, made their hooked noses look a lot like bird beaks.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the Rito return, but with more animal-looking appearances than before. The parrot-like Kass is a wandering minstrel that Link meets in his journey every now and then, their elder resembles an owl, while the rest mostly resemble birds of prey. Strangely, while The Wind Waker depicts them as descendants of the Zora, here they are depicted as separate races living at opposite corners of Hyrule.
• The Alatien in The Longest Journey are roughly humanoid birds with wings for arms.
• Mass Effect:
  • The Raloi are an avian species mentioned in Codex entries, although never seen in-game, due to them collectively throwing their arms up and destroying their tech base, then retreating to their homeworld when the Reapers show up a mere year after they have first contact with the Council races.
  • The Turians (one of the main races) are an interesting case. At first sight, they don't seem to resemble birds much, but they were modelled primarily after hawks and other raptors, and indeed without the armour◊ you can see more obvious avian anatomy, resembling plucked birds.
• The Alkari from the Master of Orion series vary in appearance throughout the series, but they're all obviously based off of avians, and when a playable faction, they are given a ship defense advantage due to their innate grasp of 3D motion from their species ancestors.
• The titular Venusians of Max Blaster and Doris de Lightning Against the Parrot Creatures of Venus. They have a pop band called "The Dead Parrot Sketch" which tells you a lot about the game.
• Storm Eagle from Mega Man X, an anthropomorphic eagle with mechanical wings. There's also Overdrive Ostrich, Cyber Peacock, Storm Owl, Blaze Heatnix, Wind Crowrang and Mech Jentra, all of which are anthropomorphic birds.
• The Chozo of the Metroid series are a species of bird-like aliens who raised the protagonist Samus and infused her with their DNA. Their name in English "Chozo" is an anglicisation of their name in Japanese, "chojin-zoku" (bird-folk race).
• Ōkami has the Sparrow Clan, who live in and maintain the inn at Sasa Sanctuary in Eastern Nippon, can fly, and use Voice Grunting laced with tweeting. There are also tengu monsters that have less anthropomorphized Noodle People designs.
• Pokémon has a few:
  • Blaziken is the final evolution of the starter Pokémon Torchic (a small Fire-type chick). It resembles a tall humanoid with a beak and clawed hands and feet, but no wings (possibly because of its chicken heritage). It makes up for its lack of wings by jumping really high.
  • Hawlucha is a Flying/Fighting type, a cross between a hawk and a Masked Luchador.
  • Quaquaval is a Water/Fighting type and like Blaziken, is the final evolution of a starter Pokémon (Quaxly in this case). It resembles a humanoid duck with blue tail feathers which it elongates at will, resembling a mix between a peacock and a carnival dancer.
• Rainbow Billy: The Curse of the Leviathan: There are a couple of these.
  • The shopkeeper in Star Harbor is an anthropomorphic peacock that Billy needs to by two colour launchers from.
  • Ferdinand Charles Duckinson the Third is an anthropomorphic duck.
• The Aviansie (sometimes Aviantese) from RuneScape are a near-extinct race of bird people, recently returned to the world after being discovered frozen in ice. It's later revealed that they come from a Death World called Abbinah and that a small number where able to return home and stabilise and replenish their numbers. Their god who united their species, Armadyl, was originally a mortal Aviansie before gaining godhood. 2018's Halloween event reveals that Famine of the Horsemen is a vulture-type Aviantese.
• Sacred Odyssey: Rise of Ayden has a race of eagle-people living in the plains, including your recurring ally Mycek and his uncle. Oddly enough, despite having wings they're never shown flying with those.
• The Aracoix in Shadowbane. Unusually, while they are bird-headed, are covered in feathers and have wings, their arms, legs and extremities are like those of humans.
• Birdmen are a recurring race in the Shining Series games — Balbaroy and Amon in Shining Force and Luke and Screech in Shining Force II.
• The Tengu from Shin Megami Tensei.
• The Babylonians from Sonic Riders are depicted as bird-like Humanoid Aliens in the ancient art, though their exact anatomy is unknown. Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow, and Storm the Albatross, all anthropomorphic birds, descended from them.
• The Avian race from Starbound. Their cultural beliefs demand religious suicide and sacrifice of others, although there are a fair few Defector from Decadence Avians. All of their tech, clothing, buildings, etc. are Mayincatec-themed.
• Suikoden III introduces the Duck clan to the series' world; as the name suggests, they're a tribe of anthropomorphic ducks surprisingly renowned for their military prowess. Three of them (Sgt. Joe, Rhett and Wilder) are available to be recruited as Stars of Destiny.
• A few of the Halloween-exclusive cosmetic items in Team Fortress 2 turn a few of the mercenaries into bird people. Well, bird-headed people. Note that it's not masks — several of the lines indicate that their heads have actually turned into bird's heads, and that they are now semi-anthropomorphized birds. The Medic even says that he experimented on his own head!
• The Empire of the Birds in VGA Planets were originally an open Expy of the Romulans, but with the current "Planets Nu" version, they've been shifted to be an example of this trope, one of many aestethic changes made to stave off potential lawsuits.
• The Arakkoa in World of Warcraft. The Arakkoa encountered in Outland are a degenerate offshoot of the main race, having twisted bodies and vestigial wings. The other Arakkoa were wiped out but appear in an alternate version of Draenor, possessing tall and thin bodies with flight-capable wings. The reason two branches of the race exist is the polluted blood of a fallen god which turns any Arakkoa it touches into the degenerate offshoot. The winged Arakkoa worship the sun, but are xenophobic and believe themselves a Master Race while the wingless Arakkoa worship the shadows and are generally more amiable.
• The Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy has the Tirkin, a race of squat birdlike humanoids living in tribal groups and native to each game's respective Green Hill Zone. While in the first game, they seem to be little more than bestial monsters similar to the average fantasy orc, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and 3 portray them as verbal if dimwitted folk who are occasionally found allied with the good guys.

Visual Novels

• The Player Character in Slay the Princess appears to be an avian-human hybrid, based on what can be seen of him. In every route, you get to see your scaly arm and taloned hand as you try to attack the Princess, and your upper arm also looks like it's sprouting feathers around the shoulder area. In some routes, the Princess refers to you with avian terminology, and the Voice of the Smitten worries about having "a feather out of place" if you try to check the mirror.

Web Animation

• The Big Bad of Starship Goldfish is a birdlike alien called Avianaut.
• Harper the Mockingbird from True Tail, though she's less humanoid than some examples.

Webcomics

• Kechika from Detox Camp, a more human-looking example. It is uncertain whether there are others of her kind.
• In El Goonish Shive, Vlad had bird-like features like feather covered wings, a feather covered tail and feathers protruding from his cheeks and jaw.
• According to Word of God, Las Lindas has bird people, but they haven't been seen yet in the comic. Technically, they're the same race as all the other anthropomorphic species in the comic: Cat Folk, Cow People, Lizard Folk, et cetera. They're stated to all be the same race called the "Primes", living on Neo-Earth alongside humans.

Web Originals

• While only the Daws are real birds, the Ocos, Vollarcs and Magaians from Dimetrodone's Aviary also fit the bill, being sapient theropod species. Magaians are even sometimes called turkey people because of their similarities to those birds.
• SCP Foundation: All members of the Wandsmen Group of Interest undergo a ritual that turns them into these. It's always a bird that the member dislikes, is afraid of, and/or finds repulsive.

Western Animation

• Adventures of the Gummi Bears have the Carpies, a race of anthropomorphic vultures.
• Chaotic has a few, and they're all from the Overworld:
  • Frafdo is an anthropomorphic eagle with wind abilities.
  • Hoton is an anthropomorphic owl. His village, before he accidentally destroyed it, appears to have been made up of other owl people.
  • Antidaeon^note named after Antidae, the biological family ducks belong to is a blue duck man who protects the Overworld's waterways from Underworld invaders, being adept at underwater combat and can use water attacks.
• Galtar and the Golden Lance has the evil flying bird-winged woman Falca from the episode "Falca - Priestess of Prey" (kind of a Cute Monster Girl) and a young bird-winged boy who helps rescue Galtar and the family.
• The Jumaki from Jumanji: The Animated Series are a tribe of humanoid birds living in the clouds close to Jumanji's (artificial) sun. Each variant has six limbs.
• Legends of Chima, as to be expected from a franchise based on humanoid animals, has these. The "core" ones are eagles and ravens, with the third season adding vultures and phoenixes.
• Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm: Kitana's father had an Honest Advisor named Asgaarth who belonged to a race of eagle-like humanoids.
• The New Adventures of Superman: In "The Birdmen of Lost Valley", avian beings must raid outside farmlands for survival because a gold raider named Trask and his henchmen hold their populace hostage.
• Werechickens (yes, as it sounds) exist in the universe of The Real Ghostbusters.
• Rick and Morty:
  • Bird Person, who is "a bird, and a person, and more". He resembles a man in a bird costume, but has the ability to fly, eats worms, and screeches when upset. One episode shows us his home planet, populated by other bird people, including a woman who feeds her baby by regurgitating food into its mouth like birds do.
  • A race of anthropomorphic crows is also introduced in another episode.
• Star Trek:
  • The Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "Yesteryear" features a race of bird people called the Aurelians. They've made additional appearances in the Expanded Universe. The episode "The Jihad" features a warlike race of bird people, the Skorr. Casual viewers may confuse the two races, since they're both feathery and yellow, but the visual designs are actually quite different.
  • Star Trek: Lower Decks introduces the Areore as a race of owl-like aliens who live in a primitive hunter-gathering tribal society. Aurelians also make a cameo in one episode. The Cerrito's counselor Dr. Migleemo (who is considered the worst counselor on the fleet) comes from a parrot-like still unnamed species.
• Star vs. the Forces of Evil: Ludo is very bird-like in appearance, but he doesn't have any wings. His family, on the other hand, are much larger than he is, and their arms look much more wing-like.
• Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle has an episode called "Tarzan and the Bird People" with an army of flying bird-winged men.
• ThunderCats (1985) features Vultureman, a mutant humanoid vulture.
• ThunderCats (2011) features an entire race of bird-men of various kinds.
• The title characters of Tuca & Bertie, in addition to many of the side characters, are humanoid birds.

Real Life

• Probably the closest thing nature has ever produced to this trope would be the therizinosaurs, plant-eating theropod dinosaurs which looked vaguely humanoid and had "wings" with clawed fingers. They weren't intelligent, though.
• In the early '80s, Dale Russell, curator of vertebrate fossils at the National Museum of Canada (now the Canadian Museum of Nature), proposed that, if the dinosaur genus Troodon hadn't died out, it could have evolved into a sentient humanoid creature, christened "Dinosauroid" by Russel. Since then, the Dinosauroid (in appearance vaguely resembling a scaly Grey alien) has been criticized as being implausible, because it is too anthropomorphic. Also, Science Marches On, and now we know that Troodon's appearance probably had more in common with birds than with reptiles. Thus, when paleontologist Darren Naish and artist Nemo Ramjet^note real name Cevdet Mehmet Kösemen revisited the concept during The Noughties, the result was decidedly less humanoid◊ and veered into Bird People territory.
• Crows are currently considered intelligent and some species like the New Caledonian Crow is often considered now the second smartest animal after humans (and surpassing Chimps who were the second for a while) due, among other things, their ability to use tools to make other tools, something right now only humans do. Naturally this has motivate people to push for legal personhood status for crows as was with apes and the Brother Ape Project. Parrots and eagles can also be considered sentient, parrots are capable of talking (they don't just repeat, they do understand the meaning of words and sometimes phrases) and abstract learning, and eagles already discovered fire.

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