Could it have been better with music?

Totally get it, and you've made great points about Hitchcock's use of 'no music'. Torn Curtian kitchen murder works spectacularly well without music, as does the infamous rape/murder of Brenda Blaney in Frenzy!
Also the majority of Rear Window uses very little music, other than the sounds of radios and music being played across the courtyard!

And of course lets not forget Hitch didn't originally wanted no music in the shower scene! So could it be that maybe scenes of high suspense DON'T need music, but maybe the big shock moments do!

Arbogasts murder for example features very soft, almost inaudible, music in the suspenseful climb of the Bates staircase, up until the shocking moment of his murder then the music BLASTS! So could it be that the suspense sequences of The Birds DONT need music a la the jungle gym scene but the shock moments, for example the final attack on Melanie maybe needed that 'lift', I don't know that this would have made it better but it's food for thought!

What's interesting is that Hitchcock was just coming off of Psycho, which had the greatest score that Bernard Herrmann ever gave a Hitchcock film -- with Vertigo right behind that, and North by Northwest right behind that...and all the scores from The Trouble With Harry through The Wrong Man before that.

Hitchcock gave Herrmann a bonus for the Psycho score once the movie hit big -- Hitch had to know that the screeching violins during the murders and climax took Psycho into the stratosphere for audience screaming.

And yet -- and some Hitchcock colleagues have spoken to this -- Hitchcock just might have been a bit JEALOUS about how important Herrmann's music was to Psycho.

So what does Hitchcock do?

He puts NO music in The Birds. He DOES hire Herrmann to "advise on sound"(the bird shrieks are rather like the psycho screaming strings). But instead of giving Herrman an entire screen credit to himself(as he got for Psycho, and its gets applaluse when the movie is shown on the big screen), Herrmann has to SHARE his Birds credit with the guys who designed the birds' screeches.

It was a bit of a comedown for Herrmann.

And then Herrmann got to score one more Hitchcock film -- Marnie.

And then Hitchcock FIRED Herrmann off the next Hitchcock film -- Torn Curtain.

So it would seem to me that if there's a reason The Birds has no score, its Hitchcock's jealously of Herrmann.

And we will never know how great a score Herrmann could have given to The Birds, but we could have "had our cake and eaten it ,too" the great bird sounds AND a great Herrmann score.

I didn’t notice there was no score! Interesting.

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Yes. There is one earlier Hitchcock film with no score at all -- Lifeboat (1944) -- in which all the characters are alone on a lifeboat on the open sea and the lack of music makes them seem all the more alone and abandoned.

"The Birds" didn't have music...but the "electronic bird sounds" were, to Hitchcock's mind , just like a score. He said "movie music isn't really music...its just sounds." I'd say Hitch was wrong about that, and The Birds proves it. Sound effects are different than music.

"There's no character development or redemption"

This I don't agree with. The lovebirds are an important symbol in the film. They never get aggressive or violent even though all the other birds do. I think this is significant. As for the human characters, the mother (Jessica Tandy) and Melanie (Tippi Hedren) start off on the wrong foot and are antagonistic. Mitch (Rod Taylor) and Melanie also start off very antagonistically. There is also tension between Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) and Melanie. By the end of the film, all of these characters are reconciled and come to care for each other. I think one of the key themes of the film is love and reconciliation in the face of a harsh and indifferent universe. When they drive off at the end of the film, we do see the birds have taken over (that's true), BUT there is also a shaft of sunlight coming through the clouds in the distance. This suggests at least the possibility of hope at the end of the film.

P.S. In real life, one of the "lovebirds" killed the other one on set. I guess they couldn't agree over which one got top billing in the credits. He he.

Interesting comments all around here.

The sound effects in The Birds are as unique and historic as anything else that was truly great in Hitchcock. Even though other men created the sound effects, and Bernard Herrmann helped "orchestrate" them...they were Hitchcock's idea and they give The Birds a personality all its own...particularly at the very end where there are birds as far as the eye can see -- even as our eyes our flooded with the SIGHT of "the birds have taken over" our ears HEAR that finality...the fluttering, only lightly squawking birds(they are waiting, not attacking) tell us: "this is the birds world now."

Hitchcock "directs" the sound for certain effects. Notice how when Melanie is attacked in the attic room near the end, all we mainly hear are "quiet fluttering feathers" with just a little squawking. Hitchcock said: "The birds have trapped Melanie and they will kill her quietly so that nobody will hear." Doesn't work out that way but imagine the villainy of birds who DECIDE to attack quietly.

But this was LOST: remember how when Mother came rushing out of her bedroom at Arbogast with knife upraised in Psycho? Herrmann's screeching violins are much louder and faster and more shocking than in the shower scene so -- audiences screamed suddenly from the scare -- this got a BIG scream in the theater.

Well, what if that music had come up when Melanie entered the room with the birds? Maybe THAT would have been a big scream scene too.

I don't think it was.

And imagine if Hitchcock had put Herrmann's screeching violins over the shot of the farmer with the pecked out eyes just as his body is discovered by Lydia. Coudla been BIG screams -- as I recall, there were some screams, but not Psycho level screams.

In other words, by not putting traditional "shock music" on the soundtrack, Hitchcock lost some of the screambility of Psycho when he made The Birds. And he paid for that -- The Birds made less than half the box office of Psycho.