The Fake Bird is an object in the 1998 Disney/Pixar animated film, A Bug's Life.
Background
The fake bird is made of sticks, acorn nuts, and autumn leaves patched up with spider web to construct it. Inside is a megaphone made of a leaf used for passengers to amplify the sound of a bird 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 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 the ants no longer do this in the present. The colony then works hard to build the bird using sticks, nuts, 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 the bugs did would be successful to scare 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 advice, 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 success just as Gypsy marks the signal for Flik and the Blueberries to use the bird and scare the grasshoppers. The bird, however, glides downwards with Dot making birdlike screeches to scare the grasshoppers away just as all the surviving bugs scream in terror except for the fireflies using their own lights as spotlights for entertainment. The bird, however, crashes onto P.T.'s circus wagons, mistaking the fake bird for a real bird. He does his infamous "Flaming Death" act, mixing fire from his match with Dragon's Breath gas, striking the fake bird and causing it to burn with all the ants inside to evacuate. Flik, Dot, and the Blueberries escape from the fake bird caught on fire just as the grasshoppers then corner all the bugs in Ant Island with Flik confronting him for his tyrannical plan.
