not all birds mean death. Death is transitional, and metamorphic. Like waiting at a bus station. Not all birds represent it in their meaning, or medicine but just about all of them represent the elements of air and clairaudience - like messengers between worlds. Like - little Gabriel's.
I could almost say birds and instects are the easiest to come and go about synchronicity because it's allot easier for them to come to you in such like a city than it would be for like a jaguar
imagine that on your roof!
They are clever and sightful, it's the air element.
Many of the same birds vary in meanings depending on the culture like owl, the night hawk can be a harbinger of death in three hoots in three nights or are teachers of seeing with the truth. I've had owls come visit me for different reasons, starting with a time I really needed some company to teach me about being my own bird in a place I just didn't fit like the difference bettween night and day. Since then I've had owl come by like before my father died but it was comforting, like sitting silent with a friend.
My most favorite example about death, two worlds and the transitions there and communication there though is the way red bird, the cardinal means. Because he has a black mask, he's a dayshift version of the shapeshifters, and he has a crown and a mystical song.
I like blue jay and the kingfisher in particular too. I love them all though really, and there is a huge blue herring who flies from the west to the east towards his nest every sunset here.
There is nothing to really fear in any animal but one's own self and aspects of one's own shadow parts that are scary and such to the other hand. I have an unnatural phobia of cockroaches myself which came from when one flew into my hair as a child, I think not long after I had been stung by a wasp in the head and my mother had a mortal fear of frogs which I think came into associations to her from abuse as a child she couldn't consiously admit to.
Sparrows in a generic, common meaning are very versitile, adaptable and noble tiny creatures.
Bird song is indeed the finest thing about spring and early mornings. It's a spirit song, proportionate to their purpose in life. They sing for all new things, for life, for relationships, they voice in a way that's like our own vocal cord to the earth and the winds. Some have very specific songs that are theirs alone, yet others take what they like from all the others to make up stuff like mocking birds, crows, ravens and parrots. If you want to find your true spirit union, you gotta sing your heart and dance your finest joy. It's all about self expression, being one's own bird without appology. Forgive me for existing, let me just step out of so rudly plopping into your reality here .... hehehe animals just don't do that ... but they do know about shapeshifting and what times are best to do what, when for the most optimum harmony in survival with adversity. Song is love. Song is spirit.
I've had an 'astral' cat ... I've even had an astral mouse ... I've seen a spirit deer, a stag, in kind of accidentally going out of body and in the same I've been chased back into my house for my body in dream world by coyotes but I have yet to experience a 'ghost bird' except for a hawk, owl, blue jay and a herring in dream world. They usually don't have a problem with going where they need to when they die, or leaving an attatchment or they're just too erm, flighty for me to really sense in some way other than dream about them. I dream about many different birds who have their own meanings but encountering different areas of energies in waking world, I've come to more or less find domestic pets tend to 'stick' more than other animals.
I dunno, from my own experience I'd have to say if there was a spirit bird in your closet, must've been nesting there for a few generations or was a previous pet or was a way of guidance trying to get your attention a little without scaring the holy hanna out of you - or was a real bird looking to nest and got in there.