History Main / ArtisticLicenseOrnithology

* Victoria Hanley's ''The Light Of The Oracle'' crosses this trope with AnimalMotifs. In the ''Oracle'' world, [[TheChosenMany certain people]] are granted magical powers by birds, and the type of bird that chooses you [[SuperpowerLottery determines what power you get.]] Clea- the resident AlphaBitch- was chosen by a vulture, and spends the book bullying and plotting against the protagonist. Much is made in-universe of how fitting it is that such a cruel girl should be chosen by such an [[UnfortunateImplications ugly]] bird. Except...vultures ''aren't'' cruel. Most of the time, they only eat what's already dead, scavenging off the kills of other predators. This- while [[{{Squick}} disgusting]]- does not make them the emblems of vice and malice other characters hold them to be. If anything, they clean up the world.

* ''Inko Colors'': Averted. The birds are all nicely accurate in anatomy and movement, and the parakeets even possess the proper zygodactyl feet.
* ''Anime/KimbaTheWhiteLion'': Averted by Coco the parrot in the 80s version. He has two toes in the front and two pointing back like a real parrot does.

* Averted in ''Anime/TamakoMarket''. Dera Mochimazzwi, a nondescript cockatiel-like parrot, has two toes pointing forward and two pointing back like a real parrot.

* The (in)famous peeing baby penguin in ''WesternAnimation/HappyFeet 2''. Penguins are in the Neognathae infraclass of birds, they not only don't have a urethra (just a cloaca), they don't even have ''urine''. Their bodies use uric acid instead of urea, and uric acid (the white paste in pigeon poop) doesn't have to be diluted in water.

* ''WesternAnimation/SonicBoom'': Lampshaded in one episode where Soar the Eagle points out the oddity that he has to use a jetpack while Tails (a fox) is able to fly.

** In "Diggs", Comic Book Guy's falcon can mimic speech in the manner of a parrot, which he lampshades.

** "ComicBook/SupergirlsSuperPet": One scene features an eagle swooping down on some chicks which are running scampering around the yard...in the dead of the night. Neither eagles nor chickens are diurnal birds, so neither of them should be out and about (let alone hunting).

Can certainly extend to other flying creatures; many are the pterosaurs and other {{Giant Flyer}}s that are shown constructing chicken-like nests. See also FeatherFingers, NoisyNature, ToothyBird, OstrichHeadHiding, AcrophobicBird, FlyingFlightlessBird, PenguinsAreDucks, MouthyBird, NoCartoonFish, PeculiarPenguin, and AllAnimalsAreDogs.

* ''Anime/{{Arrietty}}'' also averts this by demonstrating corvid intelligence. A crow spots Arrietty, caws, and looks away, so Arietty turns away as well, to talk to Sho. Several ''minutes'' later, the "harmless" crow suddenly ''attacks from her blind side''. Only the cawing of another crow gives the attack away at the last second.
* Averted in ''Anime/TamakoMarket''. Dera Mochimazzwi, a nondescript cockatiel-like parrot, has two toes pointing forward and two pointing back like a real parrot.

* ''Inko Colors'': Averted. The birds are all nicely accurate in anatomy and movement, and the parakeets even possess the proper zygodactyl feet.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}'': Hayabusa, Shan-Yu's loyal pet, normally acts like a falcon (albeit [[NoisyNature with a red-tailed hawk's call]]) until the very end after getting all his feathers burnt off. He promptly starts to [[SillyAnimalSound cluck like a chicken]]. He can also run around on the ground as swiftly as a chicken, which, while [[RuleOfFunny funny]], is very hard for most falcons to do due to their anatomy. (Flightless falcons in rehab actually can and do run as their primary way of getting around, and they are surprisingly good at it) He also has vertical slit pupils (unknown in any bird of prey; actually there's only one bird with vertical pupils, the skimmer). Then again, weird eyes are also a prominent trait of his master, Shan-Yu.

* At the end of ''WesternAnimation/ABugsLife'' (also by Pixar), a passerine bird that constantly attacked the main characters actually hatches out several down-covered chicks with completely-opened eyes that proceed to [[spoiler: eat Hopper alive]]. In real life, [[http://jaybirdseye.smugmug.com/Nature/Other-Birds/House-Finch-chicks-6-days-old/303311929_ebwW6-L.jpg baby passerine birds are born mostly naked]] (aside from a few hairy feathers in a few species) and blind, and would look nothing [[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100928063221/pixar/images/4/43/Bl_059Chicks.jpg like they do in the film]], which look more like baby chickens.
* The movie ''WesternAnimation/LegendOfTheGuardiansTheOwlsOfGaHoole'' is one of the least obnoxious examples, [[GeniusBonus and goes well out of its way]] to avoid this trope. For the most part the birds looked, acted and moved like owls. The film even avoids the dreaded AcrophobicBird trope ("We're on the ground! The worst place for an Owl!")...
** Aside from their eyes. The fixed raptor glare wouldn't have cut it in a visual medium.
** One odd bit: Nyra, a female Barn Owl (''Tyto alba'') is nearly solid white, with a few gray patches and spots. In real life, only male Barn Owls could have this coloration. Females are considerably darker. Then again, her plumage is more due to ColorCodedForYourConvenience. Soren's mother and father represent the normal colour dimorphism for barn owls. It's also stated in the books that one of the defining traits of Nyra is her very white facial mask and body. Several times it's stated there that her face looks like the full moon came out of the sky and down to earth. Which means the film-makers actually got that part right.

** Also, parrot hatchlings don't look like that. Presumably, RuleOfCute overrode reality, as parrots, like most arboreal birds, enter the world naked and blind.

* The ostriches in the "Dance of the Hours" sequence of ''WesternAnimation/{{Fantasia}}'' are ''supposed'' to be female... [[AnimalGenderBender but the plumage is that of a ''male'' ostrich]]. Females are brown.

* The (in)famous peeing baby penguin in ''WesternAnimation/HappyFeet 2''. Penguins are in the Neognathae infraclass of birds, they not only don't have a urethra (just a cloaca), they don't even have ''urine''. Their bodies use uric acid instead of urea, and uric acid (the white paste in pigeon poop) doesn't have to be diluted in water.
* The ToiletHumor gag in ''WesternAnimation/TheAngryBirdsMovie'' features the Mighty Eagle peeing in the Lake of Wisdom (which the Bomb and Chuck were ''bathing in'', much to their horror). Prior to this, the two unfortunate birds were shown gargling and spitting the water as they played in it, two things birds can't do in real life.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRescuersDownUnder'':
** The bird chart Jake looks at when Wilbur is about to land shows various species such as [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrubbird scrubbird]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lories_and_lorikeets lorikeet]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeyeater honeyeater]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butcherbird butcherbird]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galah galah]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noisy_miner noisy miner]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufous_whistler rufous whistler]] (misspelled as "rufus whistler"), [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crested_bellbird crested bellbird]], [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freckled_duck freckled duck]] and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowerpiercer flowerpiercer]]. However, almost none of these birds are the right shape and size (for example, the dove seems to be smaller than the wren, the crested bellbird looks more like a cockatoo), and flowerpiercers are [[MisplacedWildlife native to South America]] - they probably meant to call it a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flowerpecker flowerpecker]], which would have been more accurate for Australia.
** Both ''Rescuers'' movies also underestimate the albatross' size enormously if you compare them to the mice characters. Also, albatrosses are found almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere (although they lived in Bermuda in prehistoric times). What one is doing in New York is anyone's guess.
** On the other hand the ''eagle'' character, Marahute, is absurdly ''over''sized; while the Australian Wedge-Tailed Eagle is one of the largest flying birds in the world, it's not nearly large enough for a human child to ride on. In her case it's [[InvokedTrope Invoked]]; she's a fictional species whose magnificent size and rarity is the main crux of the plot.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheSwordInTheStone'', Archimedes the owl has only three toes in each foot; two pointing forwards and one pointing backwards (and even that back toe could be interpreted as a heel).
* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}}'', Iago is a zoogeographical mystery. His pointed tail and coloration resemble a scarlet or red-and-green macaw, but that would be really weird considering the movie takes place in Medieval Arabia and America hadn´t been discovered yet (macaws are exclusively New World birds). Also he seems rather small for a macaw. There's also the possibility that he's a red lory, which is native to Indonesia. And let's not even get into the fact that he has teeth and is lacking one toe in each foot.
* Averted in ''WesternAnimation/BrotherBear'', in which a non-speaking bald eagle plays an important role and for once, it makes actual bald eagle sounds instead of red-tail hawk sounds.
* ''WesternAnimation/SaludosAmigos'' has a greater rhea which is identified as an "Argentine ostrich", complete with having only two toes and its Portuguese name translated to "avestruz" (the proper name in the language is "ema").
* ''WesternAnimation/ChickenRun'': The entire premise is that Mrs Tweedy, tiring of the low profits from egg production, decides to convert the farm to make chicken pies instead. However chickens good for egg laying make poor meat birds and vice versa, so if she had succeeded her pies would have been poor quality and unlikely to sell well. The premise does work however, if you assume that the current chickens will be used to make a prototype pie batch to prove the machine and concept work and once this has happened a broiler breed will replace them. It wouldn't even be out of the question for her to simply either not know or care about this fact, as neither her or her husband are particularly intelligent and only seem in it for the money; there's even a gag where they ([[OneDialogueTwoConversations accidentally]]) agree that the chickens are "revolting".

* ''Film/TheJungleBook2016'':
** A cuckoo chick is shown sitting in a nest on a branch, when its foster parent, depicted by a green bee-eater, arrives to feed it. However, while there are many different cuckoo species in India and they are nest parasites of a fairly wide variety of birds, bee-eaters are not among those species known to be targeted by cuckoos. Also, bee-eaters don't build nests; they breed in burrows excavated in riverbanks and sandy areas.
** At another point in the movie, while Baloo and Bagheera are climbing the cliff in pursuit of the Bandar-log, the call of a red-tailed hawk (a species not found in India) is heard.
* In the SoBadItsGood film ''Film/TheGiantClaw'', the eponymous bird... thing has a mouthful of some other animals' teeth, human hair, and can ''flare its nostrils''. This would be excused because it's an [[BizarreAlienBiology alien]], but [[http://www.monstershack.net/sp/index.php/the-giant-claw-1957/ it's already so fake-looking]] that the nostrils just compound the silliness.
* Film/HowardTheDuck: A great many things, some of which can be explained by the fact Howard is an alien and some not-so-much:
** Small potatoes compared to some of the other weirdness in the movie, but on Howard's homeworld, duck hens have [[NonMammalMammaries breasts]].
** Later on, a [[ParodyOfEvolution parody of the (in)famous "rise of man"]] [[EvolutionaryLevels evolution sequence]] is shown and Howard's earliest ancestor is... [[ArtisticLicenseBiology an egg]]. Well, at least we now know which came first.
** When the eponymous character freaks out over being offered eggs at a restaurant, shouting about how he's not a cannibal. This is despite the fact that as an '''alien''', there's no way he could be even remotely related to any terrestrial bird species. And even if he was, eating chicken eggs is no more cannibalism than a human eating beef or pork is.
* In ''Film/{{Clash of the Titans|2010}}'', Zeus' totem is a bald eagle. Bald eagles live in North America, not Greece. Contact between the two continents was not formally established until many centuries after the movie is supposed to take place. The nearest plausible analog would have been the similar-looking, but lesser celebrated, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-tailed_Eagle White-Tailed Eagle]], or the similar-sized and equally impressive [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Eagle Golden Eagle]].
* ''Film/MaryPoppins'' features the title character singing with a robin during "Spoonful of Sugar"; however, it's an American robin, while the story takes place in London. It's also a pair of ''male'' robins building that nest.
* ''Film/HeavenAndEarth1990'': In this 1990 Haruki Kadokawa samurai film, one scene features a singing White-crowned Sparrow, which is a common enough bird in Alberta, where the film was shot ... but essentially impossible to come by in medieval Japan, where the film is set.

* In ''Film/Jungle2Jungle'', Mimi-Siku points out a bird and says "hoko." His father interprets this as meaning "bird," but Mimi-Siku corrects him by saying "hoko" means "toucan" and that "bird" is a different word. The problem is that the bird pointed out was a scarlet macaw, not a toucan.

* ''Literature/TheBartimaeusTrilogy'' is normally correct on this and parodies this trope when Bartimaeus transforms into a raven for the first time and it was in the dark. He winds up almost normal but with a bright blue beak.
* Italian 18th century poet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugo_Foscolo-link Ugo Foscolo]]associated the colourful bird [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoopoe Hoopoe]] and graveyards in his famous work "Dei Sepolcri" (roughly translated as "About the Tombs") because he felt that it was poetically fit. This may have been inspired by Estonia , and to a lesser degree in neighboring areas, where the hoopoe has traditionally been considered to be a harbinger of death. Across the sea in Scandinavia, it is a harbinger of war.
* Both averted and lampshaded in Creator/MercedesLackey's ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'' novels (the author is a falconer). While certain tribes have raptors with near-human intelligence, this is explicitly the result of a generations-long breeding program and a psychic link between handler and bird -- wild raptors are nothing like the Hawkbrothers' Bondbirds.

* In ''Literature/BabylonRising'' by Tim LaHaye and Greg Dinallo, villain [[MeaningfulName Talon]] trains ''hawks'' to serve as [[InstantMessengerPigeon instant messenger pigeons]]. Furthermore, his trained hawks can unroll scrolls, kill a man by dive-bombing his back, and fly around carrying [[BuffySpeak big snake statue bits.]]

* Averted in ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': Tobias' iconic "TSEEEEEEERRRRR!" is a decent onomatopeia for the classic "bird of prey" sound in movies... because he ''is'' a red-tailed hawk.
* ''Literature/LetsStartDrawing'': The character Timothy the Toucan is seen swimming several times despite the fact that Toucans can't swim.
* The protagonist Maggie aside, magpies are portrayed as rather birdbrained in ''Literature/{{Firstborn}}''. Even other birds consider them annoying pests. In real life, magpies have been shown to be more developmentally advanced than many other types of birds.

* In ''Golden Gate'' by James Ponti, the City Spies are trying to find a coded message in a photograph, which depicts a trio of ravens. Brooklyn, the group's hacker, explains that two common names for a group of ravens are "a conspiracy" and "a murder." While the first is correct, the second is a collective noun for a group of ''crows'', not ravens.

* In a Disney adaptation of ''Series/SwissFamilyRobinson'' (a [[RecycledTheSeries series spun off from their film adaptation]]) the family meets a falconer and his... bird. A bird that is played by at least ''three different species'' over the course of the episode. She is shown flying (via StockFootage of a falcon), landing on the ground (suddenly, she's a Red-Tailed Hawk), and then landing on the man's wrist (now she's a Golden Eagle).
* The History Channel aired a program about a black African mummy found in the Sahara, in which footage of a contemporary African cattle-herding village was used to simulate what the dead boy's community might have been like. Unfortunately, a rooster is heard crowing in the background, and while the mummified boy's culture had acquired goats and cattle from the Middle East, chickens (an Asian species) wouldn't make it to Africa for another few thousand years.
* ''Hysteria'', the woeful TV movie about the rock band Music/DefLeppard, features shots of American bird species in its very first scene, despite being set in Sheffield, Yorkshire.
* ''Series/WheelOfFortune'' has trouble with bird-related puzzles, most often by putting two completely unrelated birds in the same puzzle. Twice they've had SPARROWS & PARAKEETS as a puzzle, and another time, they had CARDINALS & CANARIES — which is doubly wrong, as cardinals are a family of birds, and canaries a distinct species.

* An episode of ''Series/{{Rome}}'' has an Australian sulfur-crested cockatoo kept as a household pet. In ancient Rome, more than fifteen hundred years before European contact with Australia. The DVD commentary explains that they asked the animal suppliers for an exotic-looking bird and that was what they got.
* Some fun with falconry - Henry VIII in ''Series/TheTudors'' is shown handling a Harris's Hawk, a North American species that would be utterly alien to 16th century falconers and in fact, only popularized in Europe from the late 20th century onwards.

* One episode of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' has Sheldon being terrorized by what the cast calls a "blue jay." It's really a black-throated magpie-jay, which on top of that is not native to Pasadena. Justified since Sheldon has a crippling fear of birds, and wouldn't be expected to know enough about them. Also, the bird was established as an escaped pet.
* ''Series/BeastLegends'' (a 2010 series about reconstructing mythical creatures based on the biomechanics of real animals) had a giant bird that ''launches quadrupedally like a pterosaur''. Aside from the fact that it has too many fingers (4 instead of 3), no real bird has a hand remotely appropriate for such a launch. Although it's technically not a real bird, that is no excuse.
* The ''Series/SesameStreet'' segment [[https://youtube.com/watch?v=BZSfTwfl0-4 "African Animal Alphabet"]] portrayed the umber bird as a generic perching bird, but the real bird is a long-legged wader.
* In the ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Chimera," Mulder is put on a case in which ravens are behaving strangely and may be involved in the disappearance of a woman. The ravens are featured extensively... but every bird in the episode is a crow.

* Comedian Brian Regan told a story about a golf tournament that was caught inserting non-indigenous bird sounds by a savvy bird enthusiast. "I guess I'm supposed to believe the blue-breasted whipper willow has decided to alter its annual migratory route to enjoy a little golf!"

* [=FurReal=] Friends has a new line of baby animal animatrons that you feed fake milk. Unfortunately, that line contains a duck and a parrot. When did baby birds start drinking milk? ([[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_milk Baby pigeons do]], but ducks and parrots do not.)

* The ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series' Chocobos are functionally ostrich-like horse analogues. In some games like ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'', they have a vaguely plausible, though friendly [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phorusrhacid appearance]], but traditionally are cuted up and somewhat resemble chicken-like moas. Some can also fly, despite being as big as a ''donkey''. Baby chocobos are pure "baby chick" though.

* In ''[=SimAnimals=]'', this is averted in the case of herons, which will eat small mammals. Too bad about the omnivorous owls.
* In a case of All Long-Legged Birds Are Herons, the flash game ''Treasure Madness'' recently offered a map that depicts black-crowned cranes standing around in a lake, as if wading for fish. Cranes of this species are savannah birds that feed on land.

* In ''VideoGame/BillyHatcherAndTheGiantEgg'', the villains are crows who want to bring about an eternal night. Crows are diurnal (active during the day) and like most birds have ''awful'' night vision, so why they'd want an endless night is perplexing. One wonders why the game-makers didn't just go with owls.
* Surprisingly averted in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns''. Squawks (an otherwise nondescript cartoon parrot) has two toes pointing forward and two pointing back, as a real parrot does. Earlier games in the series gave him two toes pointing forward and only one pointing back.
* ''VideoGame/AnimalCrossing'':
** The ostrich villagers have generic bird feet (three toes with a hallux) instead of only two toes like in real life. However, a few of them closely resemble other long-necked birds like cranes, herons and flamingos rather than ostriches.
** The character of Blathers the museum curator, combines the above inaccuracies about owls with another example that mixes this and RuleOfFunny: a RunningGag in the series is that Blathers dislikes touching insects whenever you donate them to the museum, when in reality; owls often ''eat'' insects. Blathers himself is aware of this fact when describing the dynastid beetle in ''City Folk''.
--->'''Blathers:''' Many species hunt this beetle. Examples include moles, crows, and owls... WOT WOT?!
* In the bonus chapter of ''Grim Tales 6: The Vengeance'' you need to get an owl out of a hollow tree by offering it a treat. Said treat is a ''piece of candy''.
* ''VideoGame/{{Scribblenauts}}'' lets you summon almost anything, and does recognize several potentially obscure bird species. However, because of the DS cartridge's limited space, many of these birds reuse a different species' model.
** Summoning a hamerkop (a small stork-like pelecaniform) summons a woodpecker.
** Summoning a tropicbird (a small seabird) gives you a swan.
** Writing "frigatebird" (another seabird) gives you a robin.
** The secretary bird (a terrestrial bird of prey) is treated as a crane (a close relationship between the two was once suggested, but was long-abandoned by 2009).
* The pelicans in ''VideoGame/FeedingFrenzy: Shipwreck Showdown'' hunt by skimming the water surface, which isn't something any real pelican does.

* Averted in the Switch version of ''VideoGame/GoVacation''. Macaws, toucans, and woodpeckers are correctly depicted with two toes in front and two in back.

* ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'': The titular birds have feathers, beaks, and eggs, but the similarities [[{{Cephalothorax}} end there]] -- their lack of any limbs to speak of is due to stylization. They also come in multiple colors and shapes, and supplementary material describes them as being of different species, but they all take care of three similar-looking eggs in a chicken-like cup nest. Different unrelated species of bird in RealLife wouldn't cooperate in such a specific manner... though then again, [[RuleOfFun they don't exactly hurl themselves out of slingshots to take down green pigs in poorly constructed structures, either]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Drawn}}: The Painted Tower'', you must conjure up a cardinal to eat the bugs that plague a talking tree. Cardinals are seed-eaters, with short conical beaks unsuited to preying upon insects.
* ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney'' has Polly, a pet parrot with the coloration of a scarlet macaw- minus any black on the beak- but a crest like a cockatoo that's raised all the time. She is also notably depicted with three toes in the front and a hallux in the back, whereas parrots have two toes in the front and two in the back[[labelnote:*]]This is also present in the [[Anime/AceAttorney2016 anime adaptation]], although a couple of scenes do depict her with proper feet[[/labelnote]].

* Light was made of this in ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' when the crew's pet emu was outfitted with speakers to allow it to vocalize, and wakes up the genetically-enhanced wolf AI with a ''meep meep!'' ..."Can our roadrunner outrun our coyote?"
* In ''Webcomic/TheBirdFeeder'', while there is a veneer of accuracy, and often actual bird facts are used, there are several mistakes that have been made. A particularly egregious example occurs in [[http://thebirdfeeder.com/comic/202 #202]], "Old Country," when Josh asks Gramps what he means when he refers to "the old country," and Gramps replies, "You know, Carolina," referring to the Carolina chickadee. Josh and Gramps are established as black-capped chickadees, which is a separate species. Attempts have been made to apologize for inaccuracies, such as [[http://thebirdfeeder.com/comic/373 #373]], "Size," which shows the actual relative sizes of the birds, and [[http://thebirdfeeder.com/comic/398 #398]], "True Colors," and [[http://thebirdfeeder.com/comic/399 #399]], "Another Apology," which shows the correct coloring of cardinals and bluebirds. This doesn't mean the inaccuracies have been corrected, though, and laziness is given as an excuse for continuing them.

* ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'':
** RealLife roadrunners are omnivorous, gray, about one foot long, look like little ''Velociraptor'' when walking, and make pigeon-like sounds. But the Road Runner (yes, ''the'' Road Runner) is slightly larger and more ratite-like in appearance, beeps like a car and seems to eat only bird seed .
** ''War and Pieces'' features [[MisplacedWildlife a roadrunner on the wrong side of the Pacific]].
** WesternAnimation/DaffyDuck has been heard to quack and have a white neck ring like a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mallard mallard]], but has all black plumage more like a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Scoter black scoter]].
*** In his very first color cartoon (back when he actually looked like a duck) Daffy had a ''light blue'' ring around his neck. Make of that what you will.
*** [[ThoseWackyNazis Hatta]] [[TheVamp Mari]] from ''Plane Daffy'' is a pigeon with ''[[NonMammalMammaries cleavage]]''.
*** Actually parodied at the beginning of a Daffy cartoon where he's seen floating in a pond with a group of mallard ducks that act and look realistic. He comments that he always seems to stand out in a crowd.
*** A riotous in-universe example provided by Daffy as WesternAnimation/DuckDodgers when he accidentally gets the Franchise/GreenLantern outfit and wise-quacks he's now the first flying example of his species. (Cue a badelynge of ducks flying by in the background.)
** With the dodo having been extinct for decades, Robert Clampett took liberties in designing a dodo for "Porky In Wackyland."
** Pelicans in Warner Bros. cartoons seemed to have oversized pouches under their bill tops, leading Daffy in 1938's ''WesternAnimation/PorkyAndDaffy'' to quickly quip "Funny thing about the pelican, his beak can hold more than his belly can." (The pelican in question here is the referee in a fight in which Daffy is competing.)
* WesternAnimation/DonaldDuck never flies like an actual duck, but whenever we actually ''do'' see him flying, he flies like a hummingbird. Of course, strictly speaking, Donald doesn't even ''have'' wings, his wings were anthropomorphized into arms early on, so the "hummingbird-like" flight is a riff on the gag of someone flapping their arms fast enough to take flight.
* An interesting case with ''WesternAnimation/{{Duckman}}'', its case of the show trying to make a nod to realism but missing the mark by being too clever by half, in "Papa Oom M.O.W. M.O.W.", Duckman, who seems to be hitting it off with two very beautiful (and very stupid) ladies, comments in an aside that he wishes he had a penis. Now it's true that most birds don't have penises[[note]]Most birds, male and female, have one opening, called the ''cloaca'', for all of their digestive and reproductive output[[/note]] but among the small handful of birds that do? ''Ducks.''
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyTest'' has penguins referred to as "flightless furballs".
* Another All Birds Are Chickens toe error: On ''WesternAnimation/TheMysteriesOfAlfredHedgehog'', a woodpecker was depicted with three toes in front and one in back, rather than the proper two-and-two. Rather disappointing for a show intended to advance science/nature education.
* WesternAnimation/WoodyWoodpecker. A garishly-colored feather duster with goggly green eyes and a beak that occasionally exhibits teeth, he's no doubt been the cause of many an ornithologist's tears. Then again, the species he is in theory, the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, entered urban legend status around when they started making these cartoons.
* Margaret from ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow''. The official site calls her a robin. She's bright red like a ''male'' cardinal, but really looks more like a PaletteSwap of Mordecai (a bluejay). And she has [[NonMammalMammaries lady pecs]].
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''
** The episode "Friends of Peter G" features a gag where two drunk seagulls are talking about how KFC is delicious, and one of them freaks out when the other one points out that he's eating bird. Never mind that there are plenty of other animal species which will eat their own kind—a gull eating chicken is no more cannibalism than a person eating a cow. That, and some species of gulls will prey on other birds. On the other hand, they ''were'' drunk.
** Another episode had a gag involving "backwards-knee birds", in which a heron taunts an alligator by making a "backward-knee" step away from it. Birds do not have a backwards-pointing knee, that is actually their ankle.
** The B-plot "Brian Wallows and Peter's Swallows" has Peter being forced to carry a white-rumped swallow (then later, its offspring) in his beard because as an endangered species, he's legally barred from disturbing its habitat. In RealLife, white-rumped swallows are under no threat; they have a large range, a large population, and their numbers are increasing steadily.
* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheFlintstones'' had a dodo (which looked nothing like a real dodo) that ''mimics speech like a parrot''. This is lampshaded by the main characters. Then again, it is a RunningGag on the show that prehistoric things act just like their (very) loose modern counterparts.
* The ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest'' episode "Treasure of the Temple" had a toucan that can mimic human speech like a parrot.
* Ralph from ''WesternAnimation/MarthaSpeaks'' was revealed to be a female duck in "his" second appearance upon laying eggs, in spite of [[AnimalGenderBender having the coloring of a male mallard]].

* One episode of ''WesternAnimation/JohnnyBravo'' had an emu being fed avocados, which are poisonous to birds.

* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb''
** The ostriches have three toes on each foot, instead of two like in real life.
** Pelicans not only have oversized bill pouches but also generic bird feet with only three toes (real pelicans have four toes that are all webbed).
** Zig-zagged in "The O.W.C.A. Files" where Maggie the macaw would have zygodactyl feet (correct for parrots) in some scenes and with anisodactyl feet in others.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''
** Surprisingly averted in the episode "The Musk Who Fell To Earth", which had a bald eagle that made realistic chirping noises (even named "Squawky" by the family). Previous episodes, however, had it scream like a red-tailed hawk like in many portrayals.
** Done strangely in "Puffless" where Duffman's scarlet macaw would be drawn with the correct zygodactyl feet (two toes in forward and two in back) in some scenes and with anisodactyl feet (three toes in front and one in back) in others.
** Also averted with the woodpeckers in "Behind the Laughter" and the roadrunner in "The Scorpion's Tale", which both have zygodactyl feet like in real life.
** Played straight in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marge" where Lisa perpetrates the myth that rice makes birds explode.
** In "Bart the Mother", Seymour Skinner implies that the cuckoo and the nēnē are extinct species like the dodo, which they aren't (although the nēnē ''is'' endangered. Also, it's possible that he just meant they went extinct ''locally'', although "extirpated" is the preferred term in that case). Also, cuckoos aren't a species but a family of birds that include the roadrunner.
** In "Diggs", Comic Book Guy's falcon can mimic speech in the manner of a parrot, which he lampshades.
--->'''Comic Book Guy''': Once again, I must point out that you are ''not'' a parrot.\\
'''Falcon''': Fatso! Fatso! Pees in the shower! ''(squawks)''\\
'''Comic Book Guy''': Shut up!
** "Whistler's Father" showed toucans with cockatoo-like crests on their heads.
** PlayedForLaughs in "Bart's Comet" and "Brake My Wife, Please", which both showed penguins ''flying''.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'':
** In "So Long, Spankie", DW has a pet budgie which ends up dying that same episode to teach AnAesop about {{death|IsASadThing}}. His design is simplified and he doesn't even have the normal (typically blue) cere of a male budgie.
** In "Muffy's House Guests", peregrine falcons are described as an endangered species. They're not even close, thriving in urban environments. (On the other hand they used to be an endangered species for much of the 80’s and 90’s, meaning that a writer could have been under the impression [[ScienceMarchesOn they were still endangered.]])
** "Brain Freeze" involves an ice cream shop whose mascot is a blue penguin with a ''pig's tail''. Brain lampshades this:
--->'''Brain:''' A tail? Not only are you blue, you are also anatomically incorrect!
** ''For The Birds'' is about the characters trying to spot a rare bird called the green-tailed grebe. No real grebe species by that name exists, and in any case the bird in the show looks more like a duck than a grebe. It's also shown perching in a tree, which grebes are completely incapable of doing.
* The storks in the [[WesternAnimation/PixarShorts Pixar short]] ''Partly Cloudy'' are also worth of noting for their somewhat flat beaks, which resemble more those of ducks than storks, but this is probably because they are easier to animate.

* ''WesternAnimation/HitMonkey'': In "Home Sweet Home", a snowy owl claims it cleared the remains [[spoiler:of Hit-Monkey's tribe]] and later wants to eat Bryce's remains. While owls can scavenge it's still rather rare and certainly not enough [[spoiler:to make eating dead primates a regular thing]].

* In Calvin Harris's "Feels" there's the line "When I say I want you say it back — parakeet". While it is ''technically'' possible to teach a parakeet to speak, it's difficult (especially if they're female) and they tend to sound like tinny and robotic, unlike other types of parrots.

-->'''Comic Book Guy''': Once again, I must point out that you are ''not'' a parrot.\\

--->'''Brain:''' Not only you are blue, you are also anatomically incorrect!

** "Brain Freeze" involves an ice cream shop whose mascot is blue penguin with a ''pig's tail''. Brain lampshades this: