A living world: birds, butterflies and the sounds of animals in Minecraft

This is my answer to the empty worlds. Nothing to fight, collect or craft, just the animals that make a place feel inhabited. It's always there, there's nothing to equip, and none of it changes the game. The mist, the storms and the night sky have their own page.

Download .jar CurseForge

Part of Cassonade, a free vanilla+ mod for Minecraft 26.3 (Fabric)

A flock of geese flying in a V across a clear blue sky, seen from the ground

A plain at midday, full of flowers, with pollen drifting in the air and a butterfly among them

A robin perched on the top of a tree, its orange breast among the leaves, seen through the naturalist's spyglass

Three creepers in a meadow by day, leaves and twigs sprouting from their heads and bodies, dark wood ribs on their chests; the one in the middle swells, its chest and mouth glowing orange

A boat crossing a warm sea at night, its wake sparkling with electric blue plankton

How it works

Minecraft's world is beautiful, but it feels empty. Now there are always animals around.

In the sky

Flocks cross the sky by clear day, several at once and at very different heights: a V or a loose group of geese, a few black crows, and white gulls among them as you near the coast. They fly on their way without following you.
Starlings: very rarely, in the last hour of a clear day, a cloud of hundreds folds and swells in the sky for about a minute, then goes on.

On land and in the water

Butterflies flit around flowers near you by clear day.
Robins: now and then one flies in and lands on a tree top near you, hops about and sings, and flies off as you come near. Sneak up on it to get closer.
Sparrows: around what was built, a base or a village, two or three now and then land on a fence, a wall, a roof or a slab near you, chirping, and fly off as you come near. Never on trees or grass, so a place starts to look lived in once something stands there.
Swallows: a swallows' nest, made of 2 mud and a wheat, sets against a wall, best under the eaves; villages have one now and then. By day in mild weather, a pair sweeps in loops over the roof around it, twittering, and now and then one darts into the nest and stays a while. No nest, no swallows: they only come where you want them.
Squirrels: in forests and taigas, a red squirrel now and then comes down a tree trunk out of the leaves, stops on the bark or goes down to the foot of the tree to sit up and nibble, and runs back up into the leaves as you come near.
Scorpions: in deserts and badlands, a scorpion now and then comes up out of the sand and wanders about. Come close and it rears up, claws up and tail ready; step right next to it and it strikes at the air and digs back in. It does no harm.
Pollen drifts around grass and trees by day, mixed with dry dust in savannas.
Mushroom fields: plants found nowhere else grow on the mycelium, spore sprouts with cyan tips and glowcaps, red like the fields' mushrooms, lighting the dark in their color; spores rise from the ground, day and night, glowing faintly in the dark, and here and there mushrooms grow in fairy rings.
Fish leap out of lakes and rivers at dawn and dusk, with a splash each way, louder the closer they are.
Glowing plankton: on some nights, banks of it drift in warm seas and light up an electric blue wherever the water is stirred, by a wave breaking on the shore, a boat, a swimmer, a leaping fish or the rain.

What you hear

Geese and gulls call as a flock passes, louder the closer it is, and a flock flying high goes by in silence.
Robins sing by day among the trees of the warm lands, some close by and others far off, joined by cuckoos in forests.
Owls call in forests at night.
A wolf: on full moon nights in the taiga, a lone wolf howls far off, once in a while.
Frogs croak all around in swamps, from dusk until dawn.
Crickets sing through warm nights, and grasshoppers in savannas by day.

Bees, spiders and creepers

Bees are drawn smaller, adults and babies alike, closer to the size of a real one next to a flower.
Spiders are drawn smaller too, cave spiders as well, but they are just as easy to hit.
Spiders turn upright when they climb a wall, belly to the stone and head up, instead of lying flat in the air.
Cats hunt spiders, stray cats and yours alike. A spider runs from a cat that comes close and never fights back, so your cat is safe. A cat you told to sit stays put.
Cats nap a good part of the day, on a bed, a hay bale or wool, and go out hunting at night. Village cats stay around their village. Yours wakes up when you walk away.
Creepers look like a small bush on four legs, closer to the game's newer mobs: leaves, branches and twigs stick out of them and sway as they walk, a bit different on each one. Between the dark wood ribs on their chest, a faint glow breathes in the dark, and it flares up, with their mouth and the cracks in their bark, when one is about to blow.

Questions

Does it change how the game plays?

No. Birds and butterflies are only pictures, with nothing behind them: they can't be touched, hunted or hurt, and they drop nothing.

Does it work on a server without the mod?

Almost all of it: it happens on your own computer, so it works anywhere, and each player sees their own flocks. Only the mushroom fields' plants and fairy rings need the mod on the server, since they grow with the world.

Can I turn the sounds down?

Yes: they all follow the game's Ambient/Environment slider, in the Music & Sound options.