Do birds and animals grieve?

Last year we delighted in the progress of a family of blackbirds, deep inside thorny branches. The parents flew off on feeding missions as the chicks called out. They would soon be ready to fledge. Then magpies heard the call. The mother b lackbird screamed, but her young were all snatched away, birds become morsels.
I'm reminded of this by a touching episode in The Odyssey, which has some splendid images drawn from nature. Odysseus has just been reunited with his son Telemachus. ‘They both broke down and sobbed aloud without a pause like birds bereaved, like the sea-eagle or the taloned vulture when villagers have robbed the nest of their unfledged young.’
SOm folk bother to wonder whether animals have feelings. It seems absurd to wonder something so obvious.
Teaching in Saud Arabia once, at an oil refinery in the west coastal town of Yanbu, we passed a dead donkey by the side of the road. On the way back from work, two other donkeys had found it. They stood in the desert, braying and braying in misery.

Picture of a mourning dove from San Diego Birding Pages