Elden Ring: Death Rite Bird (Mountaintops of the Giants) Boss Fight

Published: October 16, 2025 at 8:12:20 AM UTC

Death Rite Bird is in the lowest tier of bosses in Elden Ring, Field Bosses, and is found outdoors South-West of Castle Sol in Mountaintops of the Giants, but will only appear at night. It is an optional boss in the sense that it does not need to be defeated in order to progress the main story of the game.

As you probably know, bosses in Elden Ring are divided into three tiers. From lowest to highest: Field Bosses, Greater Enemy Bosses and finally Demigods and Legends.

Death Rite Bird is in the lowest tier, Field Bosses, and is found outdoors South-West of Castle Sol in Mountaintops of the Giants, but will only appear at night. It is an optional boss in the sense that it does not need to be defeated in order to progress the main story of the game.

If you have watched some of my previous videos, you will know that I have been using the Sacred Blade Ash of War for most of the playthrough. After trying out a few different ones, I recently switched it to Spectral Lance, as that seemed to work better against most enemies.

Right on par with my usual luck, that is when I get ambushed by a giant undead bird, one of the few major enemies in the game that are critically vulnerable to holy damage. Not having Sacred Blade on my weapon anymore made this Death Rite Bird fight a lot more challenging than the previous ones, but not one to back down when confronted with a giant undead chicken, I decided to just go ahead and kill it anyway.

Considering I have killed several of these before, I had a lot more trouble with it than I expected. Especially that shadow flame explosion it does would instantly kill me on several attempts. I partially blame the camera, as that always seems to be the real enemy when going melee against these larger bosses, but I should know how Death Rite Birds operate by now. I kind of miss blaming Banished Knight Engvall for everything ;-)

The boss’s melee attacks are fairly well telegraphed and not too difficult to dodge, but all that shadow flame can be hard to avoid. On one attempt, it even did an attack I’ve never seen before, where it would jump on me, pin me down with one foot and then peck away at me until I died, like some sort of hawk killing an actual chicken. I’m not even going to go into how rude that was, but I’ll admit I was more fascinated than anything else. Observing the behaviors of the wildlife in their natural habitat in the Lands Between is truly astonishing, albeit way more fun when it’s not oneself at the pointy end of a huge undead bird beak. I once again miss Engvall and the days when he would be on the pointy end of things and I would just point and laugh ;-)

Oh well, now for the usual boring details about my character. I play as a mostly Dexterity build. My melee weapon is the Guardian’s Swordspear with Keen affinity and Spectral Lance Ash of War. My shield is the Great Turtle Shell, which I mostly wear for the stamina recovery. I was level 142 when this video was recorded, which I think is a bit high, but I still found it to be a reasonably challenging fight. I’m always looking for the sweet spot where it’s not mind-numbing easy mode, but also not so difficult that I will be stuck on the same boss for hours ;-)

Further Reading