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Message: <blockquote data-quote="dantheman" data-source="post: 1859167" data-attributes="member: 32998">Birds 'mourning'??Why so negative about the possibility? As mentioned (post 15?) there are valid reasons why social animals like Magpies might react in the way described. Probably the traditional practise of gamekeeper's gibbets takes advantage of this response by corvids in some way.Not mourning in the sense that humans do it (so no flowers or cards - magpies can't write for instance). I believe cows, elephants and whales and other animals show a considerable 'sense of loss' when an offspring dies.I expect we really don't know enough about some social animals to be able to write them off so readily. Partly because we have such a human-centric view of our universe of course.</blockquote>