El ave Vs la ave

El ave Vs la ave
 

Correct: El ave es muy grande / Las aves son muy grandes
Incorrect: La ave es muy grande / Los aves son muy grandes

Would this be accurate?
Many thanks in advance.

It's an aesthetic choice that became a law. La ave sounds awful, so el ave became the right way to say it despite the fact that ave is a noun that in all other cases takes the female gender article.

Hay una explicación un poco más razonable. Realmente, ése "el" no se considera un artículo masculino sino una variante del femenino. En español antiguo correspondían "ele" para el masculino y "ela" para el femenino. Ante palabras con "a" tónica, "ela" se convertía en "el". Por tanto, se debe a una mera coincidencia formal con el masculino.

Un saludo.

The forced choice of the feminine singular article "el" before nouns starting with a stressed "a" is analogous to how in English we're forced to choose "an" as the singular indefinite article before a word that starts with a vowel sound. It's also analogous to two other word pairs in Spanish, "and" = "y" in most contexts, but "e" before words that start with the vowel "i", and "or" = "o" in most contexts, but "u" before words that start with the vowel "o".

I agree with previous answers; I would only like to add some simplification of the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas:


"La" becomes "el" when it's placed before feminine nouns that start with an a (or ha) and whose first syllable is the stressed one.
- el águila
- el aula
- el hacha

However, if there is any word between the article and the noun, then it must be "la":
- la imponente águila (but "el águila imponente")
- la nueva aula (but "el aula nueva")
- la filosa hacha (but "el hacha filosa")

Notice that the adjectives are always feminine; it's only the article that changes to "el".
- el hada buena (never "el hada bueno")
- el área calculada (never "el área calculado")
- toda el agua (never "todo el agua")

Also, the change is always for nouns, never adjectives:
- la alta casa (not "el alta casa")
- la árida tierra (not "el árida tierra")

And "el" is never placed before a non-stressed "a":
- la autoestima (never "el autoestima")
- la aguilita (not "el aguilita")
- la aguanieve (not "el aguanieve")


We use also "un", "algún" and "ningún" with the feminine words with which we use "el":
- un ánima
- ningún hada
- algún arma

But demonstrative adjectives and words like "poco", "mucho", "otro", etc., are always feminine before these nouns:
- esa águila (not "ese águila")
- esta hacha (not "este hacha")
- poca agua (not "poco agua")
- mucha hambre (not "mucho hambre")
- otra aula (not "otro aula")


Exceptions:
- The name of letter "h": "la hache es muda."
- The greek name of letter "a": "la alfa es la variable de la ecuación."
- The name of letter "a": "la a es la primera letra del alfabeto."
- Women's proper names: "La Alma que yo conozco no diría palabrotas".
- Acronyms: "la AMA es la Asociación de automovilistas Mexicanos."


Geographical names are tricky.
- Continents use "el": "El África", "el Asia".
- Cities and countries use the article according to the gender speakers give to it: "la Ámsterdam antigua", "la Austria que vio nacer a Wittgenstein", "la Australia lejana".