All the bird emoji, from the common sparrow to the phoenix
Bird is the generic one, a small perching bird that most keyboards draw in profile; Apple paints it blue, which is why for years it doubled as the icon for Twitter, "the bird app". Black Bird is the crow or raven; it is not a separate character but joined to with an invisible connector, so a phone that does not know the pair shows a bird and a black square side by side. Dove is white and usually carries an olive branch, the ancient sign of peace. Eagle is drawn as the American bald eagle, Owl sits upright with big round eyes.
On the water live Duck (a green-headed mallard on most platforms), Goose, Swan, Flamingo and Penguin. The showy pair are Peacock, tail fanned, and Parrot, a scarlet macaw. The farmyard has Chicken, Rooster and Turkey, with the three chicks and Egg completing the family. Round it out with Feather, Wing, Empty Nest, Nest With Eggs, the extinct Dodo and the mythical Phoenix, and you have every bird Unicode offers.
The flock grew in stages. came with the first big emoji release in Unicode 6.0 (2010), in 7.0 (2014), in 8.0 (2015), and in 9.0 (2016), in 11.0 (2018), in 12.0 (2019), and in 13.0 (2020), the two nests in 14.0 (2021), and in Emoji 15.0 (2022) and in Emoji 15.1 (2023). The newest four still show as a blank box or a split pair on phones that have not been updated since 2023.
Bird emoji meaning: the dove for death, the black bird, the eagle and the owl
The most searched question is which bird emoji is for death, and the answer is Dove. In Christian art the dove is the Holy Spirit and the soul set free, so under a condolence post it reads "rest in peace" or "fly high": , , . The same dove means peace when the context is political, and purity or new beginnings at a wedding or christening. More ready-made lines for a loss are in Condolence & RIP Emoji; for peace itself see Peace Sign Emoji & Symbols.
Black Bird leans the other way. Crows and ravens stand for omens, mystery, Halloween and a dark aesthetic, so it shows up in goth captions, next to and , and with Edgar Allan Poe quotes. From a guy or a girl in a chat it is mostly a vibe, "moody and a bit mysterious", not a threat; if someone sends it with they are hinting at watching or gossip, the way crows watch everything.
Eagle is strength, freedom and, above all, the United States: is Fourth of July shorthand, and Philadelphia fans post it on game day. Owl is wisdom and the night owl who is still awake at 3 a.m.; Drake's fans use it for his OVO label, whose logo is an owl, and Duolingo learners use it for the app's green owl mascot. Duck is the autocorrect joke ("what the duck"), rubber-duck bath time, or "ducking out" of plans, while Goose is the "silly goose" and the chaotic honking goose of the video game. Peacock calls someone a show-off, Parrot is someone who repeats what they hear, or a pirate's shoulder companion, and Swan is grace, ballet and the "swan song" farewell.
Chicks, eggs, nests and feathers
The three chicks are three moments of the same story. Hatching Chick is still half in its shell, so it means a birth, a launch or anything brand new: baby announcements, a first day, Easter. Baby Chick stands in profile and Front-Facing Baby Chick looks straight at you; in use they are interchangeable, the yellow fluffball that says cute, small and spring. Egg is where it starts, and at Easter the four go together: . Chicken and Rooster are the grown birds; is also the Gallic rooster of France and the Rooster of the Chinese zodiac, and is how people call someone a coward ("don't be a "). Turkey belongs to Thanksgiving Emoji and Christmas dinner.
Empty Nest and Nest With Eggs came in 2021 for exactly the phrases you expect: "empty nesters" whose children have moved out, a "nest egg" of savings, and the real birdwatching season in spring. Feather is the quill, so writers and tattoo artists use it, and it carries the folk saying that a found feather is a sign from someone who has died, which makes a gentle memorial pairing. Wing is a single white wing, added in 2022, used for angel wings, Red Bull jokes and "winging it"; two of them, , frame a name nicely.
Bird emoji text symbols, and how to type birds on iPhone, Android and WhatsApp
There is no plain-text bird character in Unicode outside the emoji themselves, so a "bird text symbol" is either an emoji with its colour turned off or a kaomoji. The emoji render as colour pictures on every modern platform; is the one that also has a monochrome text form, which is why you sometimes see a plain outline dove in older fonts. For a bird made of letters, the classic kaomoji are (・⊝・), (◉Θ◉) and the chick (・θ・), which survive anywhere emoji are stripped. More of those in Kaomoji Symbols.
To find the birds on an iPhone, open the emoji keyboard and type "bird", "duck" or "owl" into its search field; on Android, Gboard works the same way. On a Mac press Control Command Space, on Windows the Windows key . (period). On Discord, Slack and GitHub the shortcodes are :bird:, :dove:, :eagle:, :owl:, :duck:, :penguin:, :hatching_chick: and :black_bird:. WhatsApp on Android draws its own set, so your or will look a little different to a friend on an iPhone, but it is the same character. Phoenix and black bird need iOS 17.4 / iOS 16.4 or newer, or Android with an updated emoji font; otherwise they come apart into and .
Symbols
25Click a symbol to copy it and open its page.
Wild birds
The birds people reach for first: the generic bird, the dove of peace, hunters, water birds and the showy tropical pair.
From egg to farmyard
In life order: the egg, the three chicks, then the grown poultry.
How to use them
6 situationsClick to copyBird Emoji combos
15Worth knowing
- Twitter's blue bird logo was named Larry, after the basketball player Larry Bird. It was retired in July 2023 when the service became X, but still means "the bird app" to many people.
- Black Bird and Phoenix have no code points of their own: each is glued to or with a zero-width joiner, which is why old phones show two emoji instead of one.
- The dodo of lived only on Mauritius and was gone within a century of Dutch sailors arriving; the last reliable sighting is usually dated 1662. The emoji arrived 358 years later, in 2020.
- In January 2019 a plain photo of a became the most-liked Instagram post ever, overtaking Kylie Jenner, with more than 50 million likes.
- Picasso's lithograph of a white dove was chosen as the emblem of the 1949 World Peace Congress in Paris, which is a big part of why means peace today and not just a bird.
Questions people ask
8How do I copy and paste bird emoji?
Tap or click any bird in the grid above and it is copied; paste it with CtrlV or a long press. The same characters work on iPhone, Android, WhatsApp, Instagram and Discord.
What is the bird emoji for death?
Dove. It stands for the soul at peace, so people put it under condolence posts as "rest in peace" or "fly high", often as or . Feather is a softer alternative for remembering someone.
What does the black bird emoji mean?
is a crow or raven. It means mystery, omens, Halloween and a dark aesthetic, or simply the real bird in a nature post. From a guy or a girl in a chat it is usually a moody vibe rather than a message.
What does the bird emoji mean from a girl or a guy?
On its own is light and playful: a tweet, a little free spirit, or a nickname. is peace or sympathy, elegance, cuteness, confidence and a joke about being a silly goose.
What are the 10 bird emojis?
The ten people usually mean are Bird, Dove, Eagle, Owl, Duck, Swan, Penguin, Flamingo, Peacock and Parrot. Counting chicks, farm birds, nests and the newer there are 25 on this page.
Is there a bird text symbol?
Not a plain one: Unicode has no bird outside the emoji set. Use or , or a kaomoji such as or if emoji are stripped.
Why does my friend see two emoji instead of the phoenix or black bird?
and are two emoji joined by an invisible character. A phone that was not updated after 2023 shows the parts separately, and .
Is there an Angry Birds emoji?
No, Angry Birds is a brand and has no Unicode emoji. The closest is or next to .
