The Fake Bird is an object in the 1998 Disney•Pixar animated feature film A Bug's Life.
Background[]
The fake bird is made of sticks, an acorn, and autumn leaves patched up with spider webs to construct it. Inside is a megaphone made of a leaf and snail shell used for passengers to amplify the sound of a bird in order to scare the grasshoppers.
Role in the film[]
In a plan to keep the Circus Bugs from leaving after feeling inspired by the bird that tried to eat them, Flik plans on building a fake bird to scare off Hopper and the grasshoppers just as Atta also announces to build the bird to scare away the grasshoppers, to which the colony agrees to do this plan in order to protect the colony even though it's not their tradition to do things differently. The colony then works hard to build the bird model using sticks, an acorn, and leaves and then hang it from top of Ant Island's tree with help from the Circus Bugs, to which the plan was successful so that the artificial bird would scare away the grasshoppers.
While Atta tries to check on the bird, Thorny sounds the alarm to know the grasshoppers are back to which the threat arriving is actually P.T. Flea looking for his circus troupe. When Flik and the Circus Bugs arrive back to Ant Island thanks to Dot's motivation, the group devises a plan to distract the grasshoppers while Flik and the Blueberries plan to use the artificial bird to scare away the grasshoppers while Manny is doing his magic act in front of the grasshoppers. Manny's magic act was a complete success just as Gypsy marks the signal for Flik and the Blueberries to launch the bird and scare them away. The bird, however, is stuck upon launch, but is then resolved as it glides downwards with Dot making birdlike screeches to scare Hopper and the grasshoppers away, while all the surviving bugs pretend to scream in terror except for the fireflies using their own lights as spotlights for entertainment.
The bird, however, crashes onto P.T.'s circus wagon at one point. Mistaking the fake bird for a real bird, P.T. does his infamous "Flaming Death" act by mixing fire from his match with lighter fluid and striking the fake bird, causing it to burn with all the ants inside. Forced to evacuate, Flik, Dot, and the Blueberries escape from the fake bird as it caught on fire. The grasshoppers then corner all the bugs on Ant Island with Flik confronting Hopper for his tyrannical plan.
