The meaning of “fledged” in
ornithology is left the nest. The fact of someone raising the question (yet
again) shows it to be a bit confusing. In some popular uses it appears to be
taken as feathered which is on the basis that the two things would normally
occur together. Some young may return to the nest thereafter to be fed again
but once fledged that is it.
It is not whether or not they have
feathers yet. E.g. most precocial birds like quails, megapodes, waders, ducks, grebes, etc fledge on the day
they are hatched and long before they have a full covering of feathers.
Philip
-----Original Message-----
From: martin butterfield
[
Sent: Monday, 5 January 2009 12:42
PM
To: COG List
Subject: [canberrabirds] A
question about Royal Spoonbills
Elizabeth Compston went
to Kelly's Swamp this morning and reported inter
alia:
"There were only a
few ibises about, but one seemed to have taken over the lower LH nest.
The 2 spoonbill chicks were perched above that nest; no parent was with
them. Later a parent flew, displaced the ibis and fed, slowly, one of the
begging chicks. I was able to compare the size of the bill of the chick
with that of the parent. It is still quite a bit smaller than its
parents. Good views were had of chicks and parent, although at times one
or more would be hidden by leaves."
My question is can the
chicks in this nest be considered to have fledged? They are - as far as I
can tell - fully feathered (which is one of the definitions of fledge) and
after all the wing flapping over the past several days must be (at least very
nearly) ready to fly (another definition). They are not in the nest any
more (so NY is NA for this nest) but given that feeding was observed they are
still dependent. (As a side issue does the smallness of the beak mean
they are not capable of feeding themselves yet?)
OK, that is two questions- regard it as a post-Christmas, pre-recession
two-for-one bargain.
Martin
