How do we know that William Shakespeare liked birds?

Answer 1

We don't. He did, of course, take note of birds of various kinds, because he was a noticing kind of fellow, and used their characteristics for literary effect. Characters in his plays talk about birds, to be sure, but not always in a way that indicates that they like them. For example, Queen Margaret in Henry VI says, "Seems he a dove? his feathers are but borrowed, For he's disposed as the hateful raven". Ravens were hateful, croaking creatures who were foreshadowers of death, and nobody liked them. Doves were of course symbolic of peace, and of course everyone liked them. Banquo, in Macbeth, likes barn swallows it seems; he says, "Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, The air is delicate." The relationship between cuckoos and sparrows is a favourite theme: "The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long That it had its head bit off by its young." the Fool in King Lear remarks: cuckoos were thieves, and sparrows their victims. Sparrows were also "lecherous" and cuckoos the victims of adulterous spouses (a play on the word "cuckold"). But none of this proves one way or another how Shakespeare felt about birds. He just knew a good literary symbol when he saw one.