''Birds in the Spring'' is a ''

Silly Symphonies ''Silly Symphony'' is an American animation, animated series of 75 musical short films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Productions from 1929 to 1939. As the series name implies, the ''Silly Symphonies'' were originally inte ...

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

. It was released in 1933.

Plot

Various

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

s are seen building nests and caring for

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s. One pair anxiously awaits the hatching of three eggs, then joyfully summon all the other birds to see their new hatchlings. Time jumps forward to when the hatchlings are fully fledged, learning to sing and fly. One becomes lost and explores the ground, encountering

grasshopper Grasshoppers are a group of insects belonging to the suborder Caelifera. They are among what is possibly the most ancient living group of chewing herbivorous insects, dating back to the early Triassic around 250 million years ago. Grasshopp ...

s, humming birds and then a

rattlesnake Rattlesnakes are venomous snakes that form the genera ''Crotalus'' and ''Sistrurus'' of the subfamily Crotalinae (the pit vipers). All rattlesnakes are vipers. Rattlesnakes are predators that live in a wide array of habitats, hunting small anim ...

that attempts to eat the baby bird. The bird manages to lead the snake into tying itself into a knot, but the chick takes shelter in a

hornet Hornets (insects in the genus ''Vespa'') are the largest of the eusocial wasps, and are similar in appearance to their close relatives yellowjackets. Some species can reach up to in length. They are distinguished from other vespine wasps by th ...

's nest. The parents rescue it from the angry hornets, and the film ends with the father bird spanking the chick.

Reception

On March 21, 1933, ''

The Film Daily ''The Film Daily'' was a daily publication that existed from 1918 to 1970 in the United States. It was the first daily newspaper published solely for the film industry. It covered the latest trade news, film reviews, financial updates, informatio ...

'' said: "One of the niftiest little numbers of its kind to come along. Workmanship is the height of color cartoon art, and the idea in back of the action is both clever and highly amusing. It shows birds nesting in the spring, with the mother eventually hatching a trio of youngsters, who are then taught to sing, fly, etc. For kids or grownups, it's a pip."

Voice cast

Purv Pullen Almy Purves "Purv" Pullen (February 2, 1909 – October 18, 1992), later known by the stage name Dr. Horatio Q. Birdbath (or simply Dr. Birdbath), was an American voice actor. He was known for mimicking the sounds of animals and birds. Early lif ...

, Marion Darlington: Birds

Home media

The short was released on December 19, 2006, on '' Walt Disney Treasures: More Silly Symphonies, Volume Two''. Prior to that, the featurette also appeared on the Walt Disney Cartoon Classics Limited Gold Edition: Silly Symphonies VHS in the 1980s.

References

External links

* 1933 films 1933 short films 1930s Disney animated short films Silly Symphonies 1933 animated films Films directed by David Hand Films produced by Walt Disney Animated films about birds 1930s color films Animated films about animals American animated short films Animated films without speech {{Disney-animation-film-stub