Begging Sounds and Postures

BirdNote^®

Begging Sounds and Postures

By Frances Wood

This is BirdNote!
[Call of juvenile gulls]
We’re hearing the call of a hungry young gull [Call of juvenile gulls], tagging along as its parent scavenges the beach for tidbits.
Now, here’s a fledgling Great Horned Owl [Call of juvenile Great Horned Owl] perched in a tree, begging its parent to fly in with dinner.
And here’s another juvenile [Call of juvenile Hairy Woodpecker] – a young Hairy Woodpecker, hitching along behind its parent on a mossy branch.
By this time of year, these young birds are full sized. They’ve left the nest and can fly short distances, but they still follow their parents and beg for food. Not only do they squawk and quiver, they also assume a begging posture, head hunched down, with wings drooping.
Some baby birds, like ducklings, goslings, and quail, feed themselves immediately after hatching. But most young birds depend on their parents for days, weeks, or even months after leaving the nest.
In some species of jays [Call of Mexican Jays], like these Mexican Jays, the young birds stay with their family group through fall and winter and into the following breeding season. They’re independent and able to feed themselves, but they help feed their parents' new brood. [Call of Mexican Jays]

For BirdNote, I'm Michael Stein.

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Bird calls provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Juvenile Glaucous-winged Gull recorded by E.S. Booth. Juvenile Great Horned Owl recorded by D.S. Herr. Hairy Woodpecker recorded by R.S. Little. Mexican Jays recorded by G.A. Keller.
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2013 Tune In to Nature.org      June 2018     Narrator: Michael Stein

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