Fledglings and flight and bird food.
May 29th, 2008 by Birdy Trish
Birds raising their young.
There’s a lot of activity in my garden at the moment. There’s a lot of activity everywhere in the countryside. Birds young and old are on the look out for food and water.
It’s a busy time for parent birds.
When they first hatch new born chicks are helpless.
By the time these young birds have grown feathers they have sometimes outgrown the nest!
If they stay in the nest they are vulnerable to attack by any number of predators such as other birds and cats.
These young birds need a quiet, sheltered space (such as a hedge or undergrowth).
When they leave the nest they don’t fly for a few days. They rest quietly and their parents still bring them food.
Then as their feathers grow ‘completely’ and they become ‘fully fledged’ birds these young birds follow their parents about.
I’ve seen young birds sitting on our fence being fed by the parent bird. It’s a lovely sight.
(Houses and kitchens make a good place to bird watch sometimes)
This is the time when the young birds learn from the parents. They learn how to find different kinds of birdfood.
They are shown where all the good feeding grounds are. There is food in the countryside but, to make sure garden and songbird population doesn’t decline any more than it has, PUTTING BIRD FOOD OUT IS IMPORTANT.
I put a mixture of bird food out. Sometimes I put out single types of bird food on their own. Here is a note of some single feed bird food
I have one feeder that I just put millet seed in. There are sparrows at this feeder nearly every minute of the day. Photo to follow.
This is what was happening in my garden a year ago today 29 May 2007. A puzzled Rook
Tags: fledglings