Baby Birds Depending on Parents

A visit to John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum produced three wonderful sightings of young birds with their parents.

While walking across the large boardwalk, I heard the begging cries of a Red-winged Blackbird chick (below) coming from the marsh. Balancing precariously on small stalks was a bird that had left the nest at an extremely early stage. Somehow, it had found its way onto sparse vegetation in the open water just above the waterline. Its cries did not go unanswered; in a half-hour period, the male brought the baby food several times. Red-winged Blackbird parents will continue to feed their offspring for some time after the young have left the nest.

Tree Swallows have taken advantage of the numerous nest boxes ‘planted’ in the main impoundment – lone poles surrounded by water. The young must be sufficiently grown and capable of flying before they leave their nest, or else they will not make it to dry land! While most young birds fend for themselves upon fledging, some continue to chase its parent and beg for food, like this mid-air interaction (below).

The most common waterfowl at Tinicum during the breeding season are Wood Ducks. These strikingly beautiful birds nest in tree cavities or oversized nest boxes. Their chicks leave the nest within 24 hours of hatching and are precocial, meaning that they are well developed upon hatching, able to feed themselves and only partly dependent upon their parents. Unlike blackbirds or swallows, these eleven chicks were very quiet and feeding themselves on invertebrates and small aquatic vegetation such as duckweed and pondweed. The chicks follow their mother closely (below), finding safety in a tight-knit group.