Birds likely do feel some level of sadness or grief when their chicks or eggs are lost. While it’s impossible to fully know the emotional inner lives of other species, scientists have found evidence that birds exhibit behaviors associated with mourning when they lose their offspring.
Do Birds Recognize Their Babies?
In order to grieve the loss of their young, birds must first be able to recognize their own chicks. Research has shown that many bird species are able to identify their own offspring:
- Parent birds learn the unique begging calls of their chicks within just a few days to weeks of hatching. They are able to distinguish the calls of their own chicks from other chicks of the same species.
- Some bird species, including geese, imprint on their offspring shortly after hatching. This imprinting helps cement long-term recognition between parents and chicks.
- Studies of chicken coops have found that mother hens are able to pick out their own chicks from large groups of other chicks, even weeks after hatching.
This recognition between parents and offspring is an important prerequisite for birds being able to mourn the loss of their young. If parent birds could not identify their own babies, they would be unlikely to notice or react when those specific chicks went missing.
Behaviors Exhibited by Grieving Birds
Scientists have documented some consistent behaviors exhibited by birds who have lost their chicks or eggs. These behaviors seem to indicate sadness, grief, or mourning:
- Searching – Parent birds will often search tirelessly for missing chicks, repeatedly returning to the nest over the course of many days.
- Calling – Adults may repeatedly give loud distress calls, as if expecting their missing chicks to respond.
- Depression – Some grieving birds exhibit lethargy, immobility, refusal to eat, or lack of responsiveness. These can be signs of depression.
- Displaced Nest Building – Parents may build a number of empty nests, possibly trying to replace the lost chicks.
- Greater Fearfulness – Birds who have lost offspring sometimes demonstrate higher anxiety levels and reluctance to approach humans.
While we can’t know for certain what emotions birds are feeling, these observable behaviors often parallel those of grieving humans. Many scientists thus believe birds are exhibiting psychological distress and mourning the loss of their offspring.
Examples of Grieving Birds
There are well-documented cases of different bird species exhibiting grief behaviors:
Emperor Penguins
- Both male and female emperor penguins care for a single chick each breeding season. These monogamous penguin pairs invest heavily in raising offspring.
- Researchers have observed emperor penguins searching for lost chicks and displaying agitated behavior. Heart rate monitors showed stressed physiological responses.
- Grieving behaviors lasted up to two days, until the frozen chick was sufficiently buried by snow.
Blue Jays
- Blue jays are known to mourn dead offspring. When finding a dead chick, parents often give alarm calls and perform displaced nest building.
- Blue jays have strong family memories and associations. They are known to react aggressively years later upon seeing birds that harmed their chick in the past.
Chickens
- Mother hens interact extensively with chicks, guiding them to food sources and keeping them warm at night.
- When chicks are lost, mother chickens give distress vocalizations, search tirelessly, and seem depressed.
- These mourning behaviors tend to last 24-48 hours before the mother’s behavior returns to normal.
While less studied, many other bird species likely exhibit similar grieving behaviors, including geese, ducks, parrots, condors, and owls.
Do Birds Grieve for Life Partners?
In addition to mourning lost chicks, there is some evidence that birds grieve when separated from mates as well:
- Albatross pairs form monogamous bonds that last for life. When one mate dies, the surviving albatross may refuse to re-pair and lives out its life alone.
- Some parrot species, like cockatiels, also form long-term pair bonds. They show signs of depression when separated from a mate.
- Mute swans display agitated searching behaviors when separated from their mate. Heart rate monitors confirmed stressed responses.
Since birds do not maintain the same complex social relationships that humans do, the most profound grief reactions tend to occur between mated pairs and when offspring die. Nonetheless, certain behaviors suggest birds feel the loss when anyone close to them dies.
Do Birds Understand Death?
How deeply birds comprehend the concept of death and finality is unclear. Some research hints at death-related behaviors:
- Some birds bury or conceal dead chicks, possibly to prevent predators from finding the body.
- Crows hold vigils around dead crows, suggesting possible mourning behaviors.
- Urban birds seem to understand cars as dangerous and will move dead birds to curbs, away from traffic.
However, most evidence indicates that birds do not have an abstract understanding of death. Their grief behaviors reflect an instinctual response to loss rather than a deeper existential grasping of mortality.
Do Birds Hold Funerals?
There is no evidence that birds intentionally hold funerals or burial rituals for dead individuals. While crows and some other bird species may gather around a dead body, calling loudly, these behaviors can be explained as alarm responses rather than ceremonial reflections on loss.
Some behaviors that look like funerals may be pragmatic for living birds. For example, removing dead chicks from the nest protects the surviving chicks from disease and prevents predators from being drawn in. Birds do not appear to hold ceremonial funerals the way humans do.
Why Do Birds Grieve?
It’s not entirely clear why grieving behaviors evolved in birds and other animals. Here are some possible explanations:
- Strengthening social bonds – Grieving together may reinforce remaining family units after a devastating loss.
- Aiding survival – Depression after loss may induce brooding behaviors that protect the grieving birds.
- Preventing future loss – Grief may motivate birds to be more cautious to avoid further loss.
- Signaling fitness – Public grieving displays communicate that the birds have time and energy to mourn, suggesting they are fit and healthy.
By studying grieving behaviors in birds, we gain insight into bird psychology as well as the emotions of other species more broadly.
Conclusion
When birds lose their chicks, eggs, or mates, they display intriguing behaviors that look like grief and mourning. While the full emotional experience of birds cannot be known, scientific evidence clearly indicates that birds react to loss in ways that appear sad, distressed, and mournful. Understanding animal grief helps us grasp the emotional complexity of other species and their relationships with offspring and partners. Ultimately, the empathy and care birds demonstrate for their deceased young reveals striking similarities in the parental instincts of birds and humans.
