Bird

The plain Bird, the Blue Jay and the Cardinal all share the same behavior on the Forest surface. They perch and stay put until you get close, then bolt, and they cruise well overhead once airborne, so chasing one with a sword mostly wastes time. Swing a Bug Net the moment you are in range instead. Shaking a Forest or Pearlwood tree can also drop one at your feet, which is the easier route if you were already shaking trees for wood and other critters.

A netted bird sits in your inventory as an item and can be let go anywhere, so you can carry one home and populate the garden. Building it into a Bird Cage is the other option and it is one directional: the bird inside is gone for good unless you throw the furniture into Shimmer to break it back down. Cooking is the third use, since a caught bird is what a Roasted Bird needs. There is a rare roll on every spawn that produces a Gold Bird instead, worth grabbing on sight because you will not see many.

A wired Bird Statue pumps out birds on demand, and that is how the Bird Banner gets farmed. Two catches. Anything a statue produces refuses the net, popping into smoke if you try, so statue birds are for killing and never for collecting. And only the ordinary Bird counts toward that banner, so Blue Jay and Cardinal kills do nothing for it. Birds are also fragile enough that a passing enemy or a stray explosion will delete your farm, and running negative luck can turn the critters hostile.