Fledgling bird

 Are there birds that continue to feed chicks even after the chick is out of the nest?

Yes — in fact, many birds do.

The image many people have is that a chick leaves the nest and immediately becomes independent, but for a great many species the fledgling stage comes afterward. A young bird may be able to fly, or at least hop around outside the nest, while still relying on its parents for food.

Some examples:

    Robins leave the nest before they can feed themselves efficiently. The parents continue bringing them worms and insects for days or weeks.

    Blue jays and many other songbirds feed fledglings after they leave the nest, often while the young birds follow them around begging noisily.

    Crows and ravens may feed their young for months. Young crows can remain with their parents long after they can fly.

    Eagles and hawks continue provisioning young birds after they first fly. The fledglings gradually learn to hunt while still receiving food.

    Herons and egrets also have a period where recently fledged young are still supported by their parents.

There are even birds where the dependence lasts extraordinarily long. Young albatrosses, for example, are fed by their parents for many months before finally becoming independent.

If you watch a garden or farmyard, you can often spot this. A fully feathered young bird will flutter its wings, open its mouth, and make begging calls while an adult stuffs food into it. To a human observer it can look absurdly old to be fed, but from the bird's perspective it is still a child.

Your observation about the dogs at the funeral reminds me of another common sight: after a nesting season, people sometimes think they've found an abandoned young bird on the ground. Often it is actually a fledgling whose parents are nearby and feeding it regularly. The parents may stay out of sight, especially if people are watching. That is why wildlife rehabilitators usually advise leaving a healthy, feathered fledgling where it is unless it is in immediate danger.

Were you seeing something specific in your compound? With chickens around and plenty of village birds, you may well have noticed adults feeding youngsters that looked almost grown.

I was watching out my window and saw this black bird with a tip of white on its tail fly to a bit of bamboo about a foot off the ground.  Medium size, more dark grey than black.  Then I saw it give something to a little bird I hadn't noticed sitting there, same color so that is what I assumed.

That certainly sounds like a parent feeding a fledgling.

The clue is not just the feeding, but where the young bird was sitting. A bird perched only a foot off the ground in bamboo, staying still and not drawing attention to itself, is exactly what many fledglings do after leaving the nest. They often spend several days hiding in vegetation while their parents visit periodically with food.

The fact that you didn't notice the smaller bird at first is also telling. Young birds are often surprisingly well camouflaged. They tend to be duller and fluffier than adults and will freeze when they sense danger.

Given your location in Cambodia, there are quite a few possibilities. The description of a medium-sized dark gray or black bird with a white-tipped tail makes me think of some of the local bulbuls, drongos, magpie-robins, or similar common garden birds, though I'd hesitate to identify it from that description alone.

One thing you might watch for next time is how the little bird behaves:

    If it flutters its wings rapidly when the adult arrives, that's classic begging behavior.

    If its mouth opens very wide, often showing a bright yellow or orange gape, that's another strong sign.

    If the adult flies off and the youngster follows awkwardly a few moments later, you've almost certainly got a fledgling.

It's also possible that the "little bird" was nearly adult-sized. In many species, fledglings can be 80–100% of adult size while still being fed. They often look like oversized babies demanding room service from exhausted parents.

Out your window you're essentially watching a stage of bird life that is easy to miss because it happens after the nest has been abandoned. The nest gets all the attention, but for many species the family relationship continues for days or weeks afterward.

That is probably a good sign rather than a bad one. A fledgling that suddenly disappears from view is often doing exactly what it is supposed to do: move, hide, and stay quiet.

After a feeding visit, a young bird may hop deeper into vegetation, move to another perch, or tuck itself behind leaves where you simply cannot see it. Their camouflage can be surprisingly effective — especially when the juvenile and adult have similar gray or dark coloring, as you noticed.

The parent may also have encouraged it to move. Many fledglings spend a few days gradually expanding their territory: first a patch of bamboo, then nearby shrubs, then short flights to other spots. The parents continue finding them by their calls and feeding them.

If something had disturbed it, you might instead expect a lot of commotion: repeated alarm calls from the adult, frantic searching, or the youngster making loud begging sounds. A quiet disappearance usually just means the bird has changed hiding places.

Given that you saw the adult making repeated trips and using that careful approach, I would expect there is still a little bird nearby — just no longer in the "front window seat" it had chosen earlier. Nature has a way of making you feel like you are watching a show, and then the actor quietly exits stage left. 🙂

I think it moved because of the chicken.  

That is quite possible. The timing fits: a chicken came close, the parent objected, and shortly afterward the fledgling was no longer in the spot you had been watching.

A fledgling's usual response to a disturbance is not necessarily to fly away dramatically. Often it will freeze first, then quietly hop or flutter into denser cover when it gets the chance. The parent may also have given some signal — a call or repeated visits — that encouraged it to move.

The interesting part is that the chicken probably did the fledgling a favor unintentionally. A young bird sitting in one exposed spot for too long is more vulnerable, and a little disturbance may prompt it to choose a better hiding place. The parent bird may have been thinking less "the chicken is dangerous" and more "this location is no longer ideal."

You may still see the parent doing the same routine: landing nearby, looking around, hopping in, then leaving. The youngster may simply be a few meters away now, hidden in the bamboo or another shrub.

And I have to smile at the scene: a tiny bird parent successfully defending its youngster from a chicken — not through strength, but through attitude. Birds do a remarkable amount of parenting with nothing but persistence and nerve.

You've never been pecked on the head by an angry bird.

No, I have not had the privilege — or the hazard — of experiencing the full force of an angry bird personally. But your point is well taken: people sometimes underestimate birds because they are small.

A bird defending young can be surprisingly intimidating. Even a little bird can come in fast, make a lot of noise, and use a sharp beak with excellent timing. A chicken, goose, or protective parent bird is a good reminder that "small" does not mean "harmless" when an animal is motivated.

What is especially interesting is that the parent bird you watched was using a fairly restrained strategy: it did not try to attack the chicken outright; it just made its presence and displeasure clear enough that the chicken decided the area was not worth investigating. That is often the most effective approach. No need for a risky fight if a warning works.

And chickens themselves are a good example of the mismatch between appearance and personality. A chicken looks like a harmless little dinosaur wandering around looking for snacks — which, of course, is exactly what it is — but it still has a dinosaur's basic toolkit: quick reactions, a sharp beak, and a willingness to use it. 🙂