Birds in the Spring, the 34th of 75 Silly Symphonies produced by the Disney Studio between 1929 and 1939, tells the charming story of a baby bird, Otto, who runs away from home, meets up with adversaries in the form of a rattlesnake and a hornet’s nest, only to be rescued by his father and taken home for a spanking. The short was directed by Dave Hand, who directed three features and 70 shorts for Disney, including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Bambi, serving as supervising director for both films. Given Hand’s history at the Disney studio, it might come as a surprise that he would prove so adept at directing a film about feathered creatures. According to Disney animation scholar Michael Barrier, one of Hand’s fellow animators in the early 1930s, Dick Lundy, said Hand’s animation was “too mechanical. He used to get a lot of birds, and he would chart the stuff out”—methodically planning the flight of birds in advance, rather than capturing the organic essence of flight. But as a director, Hand was a powerhouse. He “became the quintessential Disney director—and the logical choice as Disney’s second in command—because he devoted so much effort to giving his animators the characters and sequences that they could make the most of,” according to Barrier.
