What's True Birds do, apparently, have some capacity to grieve, and numerous anecdotes portray them as mourning, or at least recognizing when one among them has died, in what some have described as “funerals.” What's False However, not all instances of birds gathering around a dead bird’s corpse necessarily indicate that they are carrying out a "funeral" in the sense that humans define them. Crows and jaybirds, for example, are likely trying to assess any potential threats around the dead body by gathering and alerting others. What's Undetermined Different birds react to their dead differently, and their ways of "mourning" are often based on anecdotal evidence. Whether they conduct funerals of their own depends on the type of bird, the situation being described, and our own very human definitions of “funereal” behavior.