The GBIF occurrence download API allows now for a “not” predicate. So there is now an other way to exclude birds from a download:
{'creator': '',
'notificationAddresses': [''],
'sendNotification': False,
'format': 'SIMPLE_CSV',
'predicate': {'type': 'not',
'predicate': {'type': 'equals', 'key': 'TAXON_KEY', 'value': '212'}}}