Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/102968
Sarasota News Leader January 11, 2013 Ardea hatches after 23 days of incubation. Her sibling arrives two days later. They are born semi-altricial with wide-open eyes, and they can soon putter about the nest and execute a perfect poop that passes well over the rim of the nest and plops with a satisfying sound into the waters below it. Mama and Papa feed them with regurgitated food and then slowly introduce them to solids by "bill-grabbing." This happens when a parent holds prey over the nestling and encourages it to reach out and snatch it up. Page 84 for a snake to swallow, and nature's cleaner-upper, the vulture, is not going anywhere near that ait, jam-packed with the razor-sharp long bills of Cormorants, Anhingas, Ibises and other Egret species all nesting there at the same time. Why is nest siblicide common among many bird species? The common answer is, "It is survival of the fittest": The elder chick perceives its less-developed younger sibling as competition for food and kills it. I have to question that theory as I have observed too Then there is one! many Great Egret or American Bald Eagle nests where all three or four chicks survived Ardea has committed siblicide and her parents and fledged. did nothing to prevent it. The chick's corpse lies by the nest and will putrefy until a rat or If we cannot ascribe "malice aforethought" or flies and their larvae consume it. It is too big mature survival skills to these nestlings, what An adult Great Egret holds prey over a nestling and encourages the baby bird to snatch it up. Photo courtesy Rick Greenspun.