"The Birds" is a famous novelette by Daphne du Maurier, first published in her 1952 collection The Apple Tree. It is the story of a farmhand, his family, and his community, who are attacked by flocks of seabirds who have organized themselves into avian suicide warriors. The story is set in England shortly after the end of World War II. By the end of the story it has become clear that all of Britain is under aerial assault.

The story was the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock's film of the same name, released in 1963, the same year that The Apple Tree was reprinted as The Birds and Other Stories.

n 2009, Irish playwright Conor McPherson adapted the story for the stage at Dublin's Gate Theatre.