Do birds experience emotions?

Cardinals do pair up. I have seen a male cardinal hold a sunflower seed in his bill and proffer it to his drab lady love. If she accepts it, they are probably going steady.

It will be hard for a mother bird to raise fledglings without another parent to help feed and nurture the babies. Each bird needs some relief in order to feed him/herself also.

Well this mummy duck seems to be experiencing emotions after her babies were trapped in a drain.

They might not experience emotions in the same way humans do, but I think they exhibit feelings of fear, grief, anger.

Yes they do. My geese are very emotional, and, very much creatures of habit. If they end up in the opposite stalls they are used to in their barn they are very unhappy.
They must be re-arranged to have a good night.

My gander Marwyn who is 14 was on anti-depressants by the vet after his first wife of 10 years died in 2008. His new wife of 4 years is a companion, but, they have never bonded like he and his first mate did. They both become very upset when I am away or their routine is changed in any way. The newer female well, not so new now, she has been here 4 years this summer had to go to the vet for a sprained hock last year.

I left her with the vet in the exam room to use the bathroom and she came unglued! Shreiking and calling and the vet said she was so distraght at my absence, it was clear that she had totally bonded with me and was beyond comforting when left in a strange place with a stranger. Heartbreaking!

Never under estimate an animals ability to feel all the same emotions as humans.

The only difference is that birds/animals don’t have the human ego that creates stories about how bad, wrong, unfair, things are. They do adjust, eventually, as do us humans, but their emotions are similar to situations of fear, separation, loss, pain. They just don’t spend years of their life recounting their traumas and labeling them as somehow unjust like people tend to do. lol

Awww! I guess humans can come in handy sometimes. I know birds are smart, I was just thinking that we sometimes project human feelings onto animals that may not be thier true motivations. But this guy seems pretty straightforward rockin’.

@Trillian Love it! I have had all kinds of birds from parakeets and cockateils, macaws, chickens, geese, doves, finches.
Birds are very intelligent creatures and their emotions are very real. Sensitive beings they are.

Geese are incredibly intelligent, have amazing memories.
My gander knows over 20 words/phrases, hand signals. He is the prince of goosedom, never to be replaced as one very special bird. :-)

ETPro has us convinced that fruit flies have emotions powered by very few brain synapses. If fruit flies have emotions, then birds would have far, far more emotions. Probably not as complicated and multilayered as humans, but definitely present. Some swans mate for life and will lay down to die with their dead partner.

I made a little robin mama MAD last year—she came at me with the ferocity of a mama bear. I’ve always loved robins because they were cute but that day, whoooa—instant respect for robins.

Yes there is a bird that courts his spouse in Australia. He builds a passage way on the ground with sticks. He pumps up his chest and walks the spouse to and fro the passage way. The emotion it has is that of pride, confidence & just overall sexiness.

Bald eagles have been known to seek counselling when their prey taunt the follicly challenged creatures.
Some have even taken to wearing hats, bless their feathered arseholes.

I’ve heard of birds experiencing stress and pulling out their feathers. And parrots getting depressed.

I am adopting a baby cockatiel in 2 weeks, I will let you know then.

I asked a parrot. He consulted with three of his budgie friends. My parrot friend assured me that they all experience emotions.

Have a look at this crow going snowboarding, and tell me if you think birds are capable of having fun.

That’s awesome! I wonder if there’s a potential market there. You could design various bird boards and they could try the different shapes to see which gave them the best experience. They could tell all their bird friends,(like on Twitter! HAHAHAHAHA) and soon they’d be lining up. There could be offshoot products, like board wax, different skill level slopes. I guess lift tickets would be pointless. Still… it might bear looking into.

My avatar is a pic of I took a few days ago of my female goose “Sonora” and her sheep crush. lol
These two are obsessed with each other and have the funniest relationship!
They spend hours at the fenceline gazing into each others eyes to the exclusion of their own kind. The sheep ditches the other sheep and Sonora totally ignores my gander so they can be together. haha

If I don’t close my ranch gate Sonora will leave the yard and follow the sheep all the way up the road along the fenceline. She also does the goose limbo on occasion and manages to weasel her way through a metal slatted ranch gate that adjoins my property with the neighbors pasture and will be found waaay up the hill with “her” sheep lover. :-D

@Coloma Wow, that’s um… I mean, I guess if they’re both consenting adults; the logistics are none of my business. Who am I to judge? ;-)

@Trillian LOL..I know, inter-species relationships have their challenges. haha
They are really the odd couple. :-)

It depends on the definition of emotions. Some argue that animals need a limbic system in their brain to be able to experience emotions.

A friend and I were strolling around a lake when we noticed a disturbance in the water. A mother duck was attempting to drown one of her ducklings that appeared to have a broken neck by jumping on it while the rest of the brood hovered a short distance away. Since the incident, I’ve often wondered if her actions were instinctual or emotional. In this case, she could have just abandoned it.

Years later, I read a story about a mother who landed in jail for murdering her two adult sons who were suffering from an inherited terminal condition. Both the mother duck and this lady had a choice on whether to take the end result in their own hands or leave it to nature. While this may not be true, I’d say that they are both examples of compassion.

@Pied_Pfeffer Yes, I’d agree. I just watched a great documentary on a wild horse herd in Montana and the stallion killed a sickly and unable to stand, walk, foal. A duckling that can’t swim with the family and a foal that can’t run with the herd are put out of their misery.
Nature is both cruel and compassionate. Dichotomies. ;-)