Little Bird Little Bird first appeared on " Sesame Street " in Season 1 , and was often used as a foil to Big Bird , due to their contrasting sizes . Little Bird was a refurbished version of the Muppetised Kenner Gooney Bird , created by Jim Henson for " Easy Bake Oven " commercials in 1968 . Although Little Bird is primarily performed by a female puppeteer , the character is most often male . The song " Mr . Big Bird , Mr . Little Bird " appears on the " Grin & Giggle with Big Bird " LP , where the character is referred to using masculine pronouns . The 1973 Character Style Guide from CTW also describes him as a " he . " In contrast , Episode 2748 ( 1990 ) features a street story in which Little Bird is referred to using feminine pronouns . In episode 59 of " The MuppetCast " , Fran Brill confirmed in an e - mail that she always thought of Little Bird as a male . Henson , who originated the Bird in the Kenner commercials , performed Little Bird in at least two sketches from the first season : a sketch from Episode 0028 in which he meets Big Bird , and the game show " Pick Your Pet . " Although Little Bird was used sporadically on the show , he proved effective with test audiences : In addition to the sketches listed below , Little Bird was featured in " Wonderful / Yucchy " , singing about his lunch , the contents of which are wonderful to him but yucky to a passer - by . He also appeared in a sketch where a cow named Lola tries to find a home and encounters an unsuccessful attempt to live in Little Bird ' s nest . In that sketch , Little Bird is performed by Jerry Nelson . Little Bird was used rarely on the show itself as the 1970s ended ( although he continued as a frequent character in books , most often flying or perched in the background , as recently as 2010 ) . However , he made a few cameo appearances on the show during the 1980s and 1990s . On - screen appearances include a brief fly - by in the song " Do - Op Hop , " at Birdland in " The Birdland Jump , " and a line in " We Are All Earthlings . " Little Bird ' s most recent US puppet appearance was in a 1999 " Sesame Street " group shot photo ( pictured ) . Little Bird also appears as one of the animatronic figures in the ride " Spaghetti Space Chase " at Universal Studios Singapore . One episode in 1990 ( in which she appears as a girl ) featured a street story focused on Little Bird moving to Sesame Street . She tries to be nest mates with Big Bird , but finds that she can ' t sleep with the noise of his snoring . She asks Oscar if she can move into his trash can , but he says he doesn ' t share his can with anybody nice , unless they ' re messy . He starts to warm up to the idea when he realizes they ' re arguing about it , but by then Little Bird isn ' t interested anymore . After she decides she wouldn ' t want to live on Snuffy ' s back either , everyone gets the idea to build her a house out of an old milk carton . A regular sized one is too small , so they build one out of a Snuffleupagus sized carton , except another bird moves in before she can . Finally , when everyone is drinking glasses of milk to empty another carton , Little Bird decides to just move back to the park instead . Marionette versions of Little Bird have been used often for flying scenes such as in the " Song of One , " " I Whistle a Happy Tune , " and " Do - Op Hop " . Little Bird ' s birthday is marked in as December 17th . Sources . _ _ NOWYSIWYG _ _