Symptoms

Ornithophobia can cause the following symptoms: breathlessness, dizziness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying, becoming mad or losing control, or a full-blown anxiety attack.

In popular culture

• Alfred Hitchcock
  Alfred Hitchcock
  Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
  
  's horror film
  Horror film
  Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
  
   The Birds
  The Birds (film)
  The Birds is a 1963 horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock based on the 1952 short story "The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier. It depicts Bodega Bay, California which is, suddenly and for unexplained reasons, the subject of a series of widespread and violent bird attacks over the course of a few...
  
  is often used as an example of ornithophobia. Although in the film, the birds do attack humans, so it is rational for the humans to be afraid of the birds.

• Lulu from True Jackson VP is somewhat afraid of birds, making her ornithophobic. As she mentions to True in one episode, "They give me the creeps, but I'm not sure why." In another episode, Lulu freaks out when a bird lands on her head.

• Green from the Pokemon Adventures
  Pokémon Adventures
  Pokémon Adventures, released in Japan as , is a Pokémon-related manga based on the video games. Satoshi Tajiri once stated that the Pocket Monsters Special series is closest to what he imagined the Pokémon world to be:...
  
  manga is afraid of birds, as a result of being kidnapped by one when she was little.

• Randy on My Name is Earl
  My Name Is Earl
  My Name Is Earl is an American television comedy series created by Greg Garcia that was originally broadcast on the NBC television network from September 20, 2005, to May 14, 2009, in the United States...
  
  is afraid of birds. In one episode Earl tries to help Randy overcome it.

• Shale from Dragon Age
  Dragon Age
  Dragon Age: Origins is a single-player role-playing video game developed by BioWare's Edmonton studio and published by Electronic Arts. It is the first game in the Dragon Age franchise...
  
   suffers from a fear of birds. The golem often comments on "crushing the vile feathery fiends" and shows disgust when Shale and Alistar have a conversation about eating chickens.

• Mitchell Pritchett from Modern Family
  Modern Family
  Modern Family is an American television comedy series created by Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan, which debuted on ABC on September 23, 2009. Lloyd and Levitan serve as showrunner and executive producers, under their Levitan-Lloyd Productions label...
  
   is afraid of birds, as seen in the season one finale "Family Portrait" and the season two premiere "The Old Wagon."

• GLaDOS from Portal develops a severe phobia of birds after almost being eaten by one in Portal 2
  Portal 2
  Portal 2 is a first-person puzzle-platform video game developed and published by Valve Corporation. The sequel to the 2007 video game Portal, it was announced on March 5, 2010, following a week-long alternate reality game based on new patches to the original game...
  
   while stuck in a potato battery.

• Courtney Tomlinson is irrationally afraid of birds.

• Sheldon Cooper
  Sheldon Cooper
  Sheldon Lee Cooper, B.S., M.S., M.A., Ph.D., Sc.D. is a fictional character from Texas on the CBS television series The Big Bang Theory, portrayed by actor Jim Parsons...
  
   from The Big Bang Theory
  The Big Bang Theory
  The Big Bang Theory is an American sitcom created by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, both of whom serve as executive producers on the show, along with Steven Molaro. All three also serve as head writers...
  
  lists the condition as one of his phobias and even discusses the issue with a small child named Rebecca who shares the condition in the 13th episode of the second season entitled "The Friendship Algorithm". In Season 5, Episode 9, "The Ornithophobia Diffusion", the episode's Sheldon plot centred around his confronting and eventual overcoming of this condition.