For the Birds: A Field Guide to LEGO Brick-Built Birds
Throughout the years, LEGO has released a flock of different bird-related sets. With the release of the latest of these, 10331 Kingfisher Bird, we are going to get a birdseye view and take a flight of fancy into the history of LEGO brick-built birds.
The Kingfisher
Since this set is the inspiration for this article, it’s worth starting with. LEGO provided BrickNerd with this set, just so we’re not robin you of the facts. When it arrived, I swooped right into it and built it quickly. I was pheasantly surprised! I can say that the Kingfisher is a great display piece and includes some wonderful recolored elements (trans clear pagoda plate anyone?). The build itself is fun and utilizes some very interesting techniques—and as a MOC builder myself, I’m very excited by some of the rare elements included! However, the Kingfisher (along with all those great parts) has already been stolen by my mother to use as a display piece in the entryway. She took one gander at it and thought it was egg-celent.
Kingfisher on display in my house
While the body and wings look great, the biggest gripe I have is with the head design. Eagle-eyed readers will notice when it is compared to its real-life counterpart, the head seems to be too tall, and the eye placement isn’t quite right. It’s a tight part of the build and may ruffle some feathers, so I wish it was more faithful to the real thing. But I’ll stop crowing about the head and pecking at the small details. Overall, there’s not that much fowl about the set.
I hope this is the beginning of a series of “UCS birds” to go along with the LEGO Botanicals line. With the recent push to release more complex curved elements, a wide variety of birds with more organic shapes should be possible. I’d personally love to see LEGO renditions of some of the birds I get to see in my backyard, like my state bird, the Gold Finch. It isn’t that bird-brained of an idea that LEGO could release a whole flock or even a crossover line between Botanicals and Birds, with a hummingbird and flowers set, for example. The biggest challenge will be setting a scale for the whole line or just considering each bird/set individually. Trying for “scale perfection” could be a wild goose chase.
Overall, the Kingfisher feels like a refined MOC and is a wonderful display piece. Before we migrate to a broader topic, I highly recommend checking out the review by New Elementary. They don’t duck the opportunity to analyze all the parts. They’re hawk-eyed with those kinds of details and have a great talon for pointing out NPU.
So, are you ready to soar into the past and quack the code of LEGO brick-built birds? Before we start, we need to sparrow some time to set some ground rules. This article will not cover minifigure-scale, moulded elements or even many of the small monthly promotional mini-builds. If I did, I’d go cuckoo. While I don’t enjoy parroting the facts, I had to duck around some of the sets because of volume, so take this list as an aerial tour of the highlights and not as a comprehensive guide to plastic ornithology.
Though before we begin, I’m going to beak my own rule and share something I was not expecting to find as I did research for this article… this set is not LEGO’s first Kingfisher! They released 40065 Kingfisher as a monthly mini-build back in 2013. So with that detour, let’s shake our tail feathers and dive in.
Back to the Past
Surprisingly, there is a marked lack of LEGO bird-related sets released before 2000. In fact, the only System set I could find was set 1724, simply called Bird. Released in 1994 under the Basic theme, this is the simplest and smallest set on this list, consisting of only nine elements.
It reminded me of the newer duck polybag which seems to be a trend of having a small set that can be built in many different ways. These ducks are even immortalized in from of LEGO Campus in Billund, Denmark.
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The 2000s: Where Are the Birds?
Even through the aughts, there are few birds to be found—they all seem to have migrated to the future. One kit that is definitely worth highlighting is yet another promotional set, the Swan. This Swan was a Legoland Deutschland exclusive available in 2003. For the time, it consisted of some more advanced techniques like SNOT as well as interesting part usage like the finger hinges as feathers and rock crystal as head plumage (or a crown).
The other set of note in this decade is one of the Creator Buckets theme. 7870 Hans Christian Andersen Bucket contains ideas to create small builds from nine different fairy tales, including the sets’ cover which illustrates the characters from The Ugly Duckling.
2010s: Birds Take Flight!
In the 2010s, LEGO seems to have figured out that birds are cool! They started off with a strong play into their own history with this Employee Gift set. 2011-2 LEGO Duck is the first major recreation of the famous 1950s wooden duck, but it not the only bird-related employee gift... more on that later.
The creator line also flew with three great examples! 31004 Fierce Flyer, 31031 Rainforest Animals, and 30571 Pelican were all fun little builds and ones I remember building.
31004: Fierce Flyer
31031: Rainforest Animals
30571: Pelican
In 2015, my personal favorite bird-related set to date arrived and nested into my heart, LEGO Ideas 21301 Birds. The three birds were very stud and SNOT heavy, but conveyed the hummingbird, robin and blue jay better than anything that had come before. The fact that they were perched on delicate stands made the set all the better. In fact, they feel like a not-to-distant forebearer of the Kingfisher set.
This was similar in feel to the previous year’s Employee Gift set, 4002014 LEGO HUB Birds, though those utilized printed eye pieces which make them feel a bit more like chariactures rather than actual representations.
I bet you didn’t expect a Star Wars set to make this list, huh? But 2018’s 75230 Porg definitely deserves a spot. It was inspired by the puffins around the island they were filming, and this is one of the first large-scale birds produced as a set. The wings flapped, and the mouth opened, so this is also the first bird with multiple play features.
2020s: The Decade of the Bird?
The past few years have come with a huge assortment of bird-related sets, too many even to list here! Less than halfway through the decade there are more bird sets than all other years combined! Let’s hit the highlights of the past few years.
A new version of the Wooden Duck, 40501 The Wooden Duck, hit the shelves of LEGO House as an exclusive and is a big improvement over the employee gift version with working wheels and a beak that opens and closes.
The Harry Potter line produced the largest LEGO bird to date in 76391 Hogwarts Icons - Collectors' Edition. There are a few other versions of Hedwig released so far including 75979 Hedwig similar to Fawkes (a fantasy bird not included in this round-up), 76425 Hedwig at 4 Privet Drive which is about to release and a BrickHeadz style one in 41615 Harry Potter & Hedwig (this also included a Harry BrickHeadz but he’s not a bird, so he doesn’t get to be in the article).
76391: Hogwarts Icons - Collectors' Edition
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75979: Hedwig View fullsize
76425: Hedwig at 4 Privet Drive View fullsize
41615: Harry Potter & Hedwig
The BrickLink Designer Program got on the birds train as well with 910017 Kakapo which was designed with the intent to raise awareness of the endangered kākāpō parrot native to New Zealand with only a few hundred individuals left. It came with a few different part hats, so it definitely one of the most playful birds on this list.
Now let’s look at the biggest provider of LEGO birds, the Creator line. The Creator 3-in1 product line has been PROLIFIC with many great examples of various birds—including a pair of parrots sets that share a design with only different colors.
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31143: Birdhouse View fullsize
30581: Tropical Parrot View fullsize
31125: Fantasy Forest Creatures View fullsize
31136: Exotic Parrot View fullsize
31144: Exotic Pink Parrot View fullsize
31157: Exotic Peacock
And that’s not even considering alt-builds. 31149 Flowers in Watering Can and the upcoming 31154 Forest Animals: Red Fox can both be remade into birds. Yes, that owl is an ALT build of the main set. Incredible.
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One of the most unique bird sets of all is the new-for-2024, 31211 The Fauna Collection - Macaw Parrots that creates beautiful wall art. These two-dimensional birds are more art than anything else, but I can’t complain about all the new part recolors in teal!
The decade is not only half over, so who knows what other bird sets LEGO has planned for us…
Theme Within a Theme
One type of bird came up more than any other in my research, so they deserve their own special section. Happy Easter! The large variety of Easter chicks stretches back 25 years. Enjoy this wide array of chicks of different styles and themes over the years.
1264: Easter Chicks
30579: Easter Chick Egg
40202: Easter Chick
40350: Easter Chick
40527: Easter Chicks
There are plenty more bird-related LEGO sets that we just didn’t have time to dive into but are still worth showing. As I said before, this list doesn’t include most polybags, promotional sets, Duplo/Quatro, or molded birds (aka minifig accessories) but some of these seasonal sets are just too good to not include. (I know how much you wanted to be reminded that Angry Birds was a theme for a hot second…) So, let’s take one last quick look at the remaining flock of LEGO birds, lightning round!
40522: Valentine Lovebirds
5425: Soft Stacking Hen
40443: Budgies
40639: Bird's Nest
40234: Year of the Rooster
40481: Cockatiel
40497: Halloween Owl
40498: Christmas Penguin
40559: Road Runner & Wile E. Coyote
10289: Bird of Paradise
Flying On
We’ll save bird MOCs and books for another day since this article is already a bit long, but know that birds have been a source of inspiration for LEGO builders for decades—and that isn’t going to change. With so many amazing renditions of our feathers friends in recent years we can definitely look forward to what’s to come in the future of LEGO Birds!
10331 Kingfisher is now available from LEGO for around $50 US.
DISCLAIMER: This set was provided to BrickNerd by The LEGO Group. Any opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
What’s your favorite LEGO bird? Did we miss a feathered friend (or bird pun) that you love? Let us know in the comments below.
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