Wealthy reformed party girl Melanie Daniels enjoys a brief flirtation with lawyer Mitch Brenner in a San Francisco pet shop and decides to follow him to his Bodega Bay home. Bearing a gift of two lovebirds, Melanie quickly strikes up a romance with Mitch while contending with his possessive mother and boarding at his ex-girlfriend’s house. One day, during a birthday party for Mitch’s younger sister, a flock of birds attacks the children in what seems to be a random incident. In fact, it signals the beginning of a massive and organised avian assault on the residents of the town – a mysterious spate of violence that no one can explain… and from which no one might come out alive.