A couple of months back somebody on Reddit posed a question that was brought to my attention.
How many audio-animatronic birds are at Walt Disney World?
It was a fascinating question because my kneejerk reaction was to assume that it was essentially
the same as asking how many animatronic birds were at the Enchanted Tiki Room since that’s
the attraction with animatronic birds.
But then as I began to run through the Rolodex of rides in my head, I realized there were
far more than I originally thought.
So l went to Disney World and counted them all because that’s what happens when you’ve
gone to the parks too many times.
OK, I don’t want to be one of those channels that drags this out and hides the number you’re
looking for at the end of the video, so let’s jump right to it.
Walt Disney World has a total of 208 audio-animatronic birds across its four theme parks.
So let’s talk about how that breaks down.
Unsurprisingly, the attraction with the most animatronic birds is the attraction all about
birds: the Enchanted Tiki room.
Between Fritz, Jose, Pierre, Michael, and all of the other Tiki Room singers, there
are 101 animatronic birds.
That’s 99 inside the building itself and two more outside in the preshow.
Now, I originally assumed the second most bird-filled attraction would be Splash Mountain
but I was wrong.
That honor actually belongs to Pirates of the Caribbean with 31 birds.
There’s a seagull and two parrots, but the bulk of the attraction’s animatronic birds
come in the form of the 28 chickens and hens throughout the burning town in the auction
scene and the scene following it.
Splash Mountain does take third place, however, with 22 animatronic birds.
About half of them are scattered throughout the ride before the big drop, and the other
half appears in the attraction’s grand finale.
After that, it falls off pretty steeply.
14 orchestral penguins in Muppet Vision 3D make up the lion’s share of birds in Hollywood Studios.
The only other one being the relatively new Daisy Duck animatronic in Mickey and Minnie’s Runaway Railway.
There’s also Wheezy at the end of Slinky Dog Dash, but I guess whether or not you count
him depends on how many levels in this birdception you want to go down because Wheezy isn’t
actually a penguin, he’s a toy of a penguin.
You know, you do you, but to me, that doesn’t count.
Over in Epcot, Living with the Land takes the top spot with 11 animatronic birds, including
four in the jungle scene and seven in the farm scene.
The Grand Fiesta Tour has three… normally.
Right now they’re just cardboard cutouts.
But in the spirit of optimism, we’re going to assume the animatronics are coming back
and so we’ll count them.
The Seas with Nemo and Friends itself has none, but stationed outside at the entrance
are three of the birds from the film.
Back in the Magic Kingdom, you’ve got six in Journey of the Little Mermaid, which includes
three separate Scuttles and a few ducks, and five in the Haunted Mansion in the form of
some ravens and owls.
Now “it’s a small world” is where things get tricky.
There are 54 bird figures on the ride.
That said, a large majority of them either don’t have any sound synced to their movement
or don’t move, which would disqualify them as animatronics.
They’d more closely fall into the category of the Jungle Cruise animals, which existed
long before the Tiki Room and were similarly never consider audio-animatronics.
I would personally argue that only five of the birds in “small world” actually count
as animatronics, and all five are the geese that can be found at both the beginning and
end of the ride.
Over at the Carousel of Progress, there are three animatronic birds, all in the first
scene of the show.
The ones hidden outside of John’s window are actually my favorite.
They don’t do anything spectacular.
They’re just more birds made to look and sound like birds.
But they’re so small and out of the spotlight that I imagine most guests miss it.
The scene itself would have worked just as well if they just played the sound effect.
But Disney put the animatronics there anyway.
It’s an attention to detail that I can’t help but appreciate.
Big Thunder Mountain Railroad has a rooster in the flooded town you speed past.
There are also two chickens, but they don’t move.
The final two animatronic birds in Walt Disney World reside in what I would wager is probably
the least visited part of the theme parks.
Tucked away at the back of Tom Sawyer Island sits Fort Langhorn.
Inside the fort and to the left is a shed area with some horses, and of course two animatronic chickens.
As for the Animal Kingdom, there are none, which is probably a good thing since the whole
idea of the park is to learn about and celebrate real animals.
Anyway, there you have it, all the audio-animatronic birds at Walt Disney World.
This is where I usually impart some kind of moral or attempt to offer some kind of larger
wisdom, but I don’t think that applies here.
It’s just a whole lotta birds.