All Flyers Are Birds

Birds are the animals most associated with flight. Because of this, any flying creature—fictional or real—are often given traits like birds. Building nests, singing songs, pecking holes, and so on.

Although birds are among the most numerous of all flying vertebrates in terms of sheer number of species, they are only one group of the numerous creatures that take to the skies. Insects and bats are generally excluded from the All Flyers Are Birds trope, since they still live with us and we know their behavior like it's nothing, but prehistoric and fantasy creatures are still at risk. If you come across anything non-human with wings, expect it to perch on a tree at some point or another, or worse yet, tweet in a bird-like fashion. This may be acceptable in fantasy animals because they are, of course, original creations/species and you can do whatever the hell you want with them, but it's probably not as good an idea to apply this trope to species that really existed (or even worse, species that still do.)

This is a subtrope of All Animals Are Domesticated, and is essentially the airborne version of All Animals Are Dogs. For specific examples related to prehistoric life, see Ptero-Soarer and Raptor Attack (for the case of Archaeopteryx and other early birds). For examples of birds themselves being treated badly, see Somewhere an Ornithologist Is Crying.

General

 * Prehistoric creatures in particular are guilty of this, especially pterosaurs. It's often the case that they stand on two legs, perch in trees, and construct bird-like nests. While it's debatable whether pterosaurs could climb trees, we do know that they were actually quadrupedal and nested on the ground.
 * In a similar manner, Archaeopteryx and other early bird relatives are depicted as being able to perch on trees. In reality they were more similar to non-avian deinonychosaurs, and were most likely ground-dwellers which could only glide for limited periods of time.
 * Science Marches On: Archaeopteryx could probably fly as well as a modern pheasant, peacock, or roadrunner, according to research published in Nature Communications in March 2018 and reported by Reuters in the mass media.

Film

 * In How to Train Your Dragon, the Deadly Nadder is the most bird-like of all dragons. It walks on two legs in a rather bird-like or dinosaur-like manner, preens its scales, makes bird-like squawks and warbles on occasion, and turns its head to the side when it looks at you, in a rather similar fashion to the songbirds who hunt worms in your everyday garden.
 * Averted by other dragons, though. Toothless in particular incorporates behaviors of big cats and horses, of all things.
 * The Pteranodons from Jurassic Park III nest in a very bird-like way, although the current paleontological evidence certainly says otherwise.
 * The Harryhausen Movie One Million Years B.C. has pterosaurs with eagle-like talons. Again, the Pteranodon also has a bird-like nest, complete with oversized Pteranodon babies.
 * In The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas, a pterodactyl bores through wood like a woodpecker.
 * Rodan in many of its appearances exhibits several examples. It perches like a bird, it builds a nest, it lays outsized eggs, and it can grasp things (such as dolphins) in its talons. Of course, considering Rodan is a fictional movie monster, the filmmakers weren't likely going for realism.

Live-Action TV

 * The Anurognathus from Primeval perch in the trees like birds do.

Videogames

 * A lot of Flying-type Pokémon that have a bird-like body shape behave in a sort of avian fashion. Aerodactyl, for example, is often seen standing on two legs and carrying things in its talons like a bird of prey. A few bird Pokemon invert this trope, though, such as the flightless Doduo and Dodrio.
 * Even the Zubat family can learn moves named for or associated with birds, such as Brave Bird and Sky Attack (in Japanese: "Godbird"). Woobat, however, averts this.
 * The animation for Wing Attack shows feathers flying after the opponent is struck, even though Pokemon that can learn this attack include those that are based on bats, pterosaurs, dragons, dragonflies, mantises, manta rays...
 * Inverted with Lugia who is supposed to be some sort of bird-monster, but looks more like a dragon and doesn't act very bird-like at all (It sleeps in a cave at the bottom of the ocean rather than in a nest). Even the games point this out.
 * Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! has "pterodactyls" that look like birds, grasp like birds, and make hawk-like noises.

Web Original

 * Mortasheen actually inverts this trope. Most of the birdlike monsters there don't behave like real birds at all, and the one monster that is claimed to actually make a bird-like song doesn't even look like a bird at all!

Western Animation

 * A fair few of the Mix-and-Match Critters of Avatar: The Last Airbender are partially based on birds, and so have bird-like mannerisms. The ostrich-horses are a refreshing aversion, though, because their behavior is a lot more equine.
 * The RatBirds from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs tend to behave like actual birds, though with some rat-like tendencies.
 * Im A Dinosaur has feathered, bipedal pterosaurs that live in trees.

Real Life

 * Early classification systems classified bats as birds.
 * So does the Bible.
 * Bats are, as we all know, unspeakable giant bugs.
 * BATS AREN'T BUGS
 * Look, who's writing this article? You chowderheads or me?