The Life of Birds (1998): Season 1, Episode 9 - The Problems of Parenthood - full transcript

For this brown pelican,

the problems of bringing
new life into the world

have started even before
the eggs have hatched.

They've had to be kept cool or warm,
according to the time of day,

and they've had to be defended.

But that is only the beginning of things.

Once their chicks have disentangled
themselves from their shells,

the first job
of these brown pelicans here in Florida,

as it is with all bird parents,
is to find food urgently.

Few are in a greater hurry
than the Lapland bunting,

for summer in the Arctic is desperately short.



Food is rushed in.

Droppings are ferried out.

Both parents labor tirelessly,

and since it is light 24 hours a day
at this time of the year, they do so non-stop.

As a consequence,
the chicks grow at extraordinary speed,

and only 12 days after hatching
they will fledge.

Dippers are also dedicated
and industrious parents.

A nest behind a waterfall
is excellently concealed

but tricky to visit.

Nonetheless, these dippers, between them,

bring a batch of food
to their young every ten minutes.

Gouldian finches in Australia
make their nests in holes in trees.

The disadvantage of doing that
is that it may be so gloomy within

that it's difficult to see where the chicks are.



The solution? Vividly-colored spots
on the side of the mouth.

And when vibrations
made by a parent as it enters

tell these still-blind chicks
that food is on the way,

they quickly provide extra guidance.

With gapes patterned as vividly as this,

the parents have no doubt
about where to post their food parcels.

These are zebra finches.

And these extraordinary objects
are young firetail finches.

What look like goggles are actually
markers to indicate the corners of the mouth.

These are the chicks
of Australian Rosella parrots.

Their parents started incubating
as soon as their first egg was laid.

That, therefore, was the first to hatch
and its chick the first to be fed.

So to begin with, there is a difference
in size between the chicks.

But Rosella parents are scrupulously fair,

and they make quite sure that even
the youngest gets its proper share of food.

Even so, after ten days,
the eldest is still the biggest.

But remarkably,

it sometimes shares its food
with the youngest and the smallest.

They are beginning to lose their down
and proper feathers start showing through.

An itchy business apparently.

Three weeks later,
in spite of five days' difference in age

between the oldest and the youngest,
they are all the same size.

Rosellas feed their chicks with
a regurgitated porridge of chewed-up seeds.

Great-crested grebes, on the other hand,

offer their newly-hatched young
much stranger meals.

Feathers.

This is not a mistake or an occasional quirk.

Swallowing feathers is essential
for the health of grebes.

They form a lining in the stomach which
protects it from the sharp bones of the fish,

which is the main part of a grebe's diet.

When the chicks grow up,
they will swallow their own feathers,

but now their parents
obligingly provide them.

And that's just as well
considering the size of the fish

that the youngsters are prepared
to tackle early on in their young lives.

These open-billed storks,
nesting in the sweltering heat of Thailand,

have also got young chicks.

One of their problems is keeping cool,

and one of the ways of solving it, of course,
is to take a nice cool shower.

But some showers are nicer than others.

The adults bring water
back to the nest in their crops,

and empty it over the featherless chicks.

But showers are not the only things
that the chicks need.

Sitting virtually naked
in the baking sun could be lethal

During the hottest part of the day
they are in desperate need of shade...

and the parents provide it.

The storks, like many birds,
are exemplary parents,

tending to the appetite and the comfort
of their offspring with care and devotion.

But not all birds behave in such a way.

It's an idyllic scene -

a pair of birds devotedly
caring for their chicks in the springtime.

But for the adult birds,
this is a very testing time, particularly if,

like these coots,

you may have as many as nine chicks
and the food supply is far from certain.

Things start well enough.

One of the adults uses particles of food

to tempt a newly-hatched chick
down from the nest and on to the water.

The little flotilla sets off
under the care of both parents.

But the food they prefer
comes in very small installments -

tiny shrimps and water insects.

It takes a lot of collecting.

And there are other troubles and stresses.

Trespassers can't be allowed
on to the coots' feeding grounds.

They have to be seen off,
no matter how big they are.

Then, nearly always on the third day,
the parents begin to lose patience.

A chick begs for food yet again...

..and is punished.

Each chick in turn gets this harsh treatment.

Maybe the adults are testing them
to see which are the strongest.

After a time,
they concentrate their punishment on one,

and to such a degree
that it stops begging and so starves to death.

But unless there is a superabundance
of food, the persecution goes on.

In the end, the coots will only raise
two or three out of their brood of nine.

Life for young pelicans can be equally brutal

As they grow, so do their appetites.

No matter how hard the parents work,
they cannot bring enough food for all three.

The last to hatch was
always smaller than the other two.

It was always the last to be fed,
and now the two older ones turn on it.

Now it will not survive.

Its parents will not
bring any food to it on the ground.

And that's not the end of it.

No sooner has one been pushed out of the nest
than a second will follow,

until there is only one left.

And that's what happens
nearly always in a pelican's nest.

That being the case, it seems
rather inefficient, not to say heartless,

that the pelican
should always lay three eggs.

But the reason
is that it's partly an insurance policy.

In case something terrible happens
to one or two of the chicks,

there's always a third left to carry on;

and partly because,
very rarely, when the fishing is very good,

it is possible to raise more than one chick.

So bringing up the young
is a very demanding business indeed.

And in most birds it requires
the full-time labor of both male and female.

But one or two birds
manage to avoid it altogether.

And one of them is a regular visitor
to this reed bed in England.

A cuckoo,
and she is raiding a reed warbler's nest.

That's one of the reed warbler's eggs gone.

And while she holds a second in her beak,

shuddering with the effort,
she lays one of her own.

The match is near perfect.
The cuckoo’s is the one at the front.

The reed warblers don't notice
the difference and continue incubation.

The cuckoo has timed her action with care.

She laid her egg immediately after
the female reed warbler laid the last of hers,

but it develops much faster

and will hatch three or four days
before the legitimate eggs do.

The young cuckoo, blind and naked,
now deals with the remaining warbler eggs.

Two weeks later,
the monstrous young cuckoo is so big

that it can no longer fit inside the tiny nest.

Its brilliantly-colored gape,
together with its call,

that mimics the sound
of a brood of warbler chicks,

constitute a demand for food
that the warblers find irresistible.

The European cuckoo's habit is so famous

that we tend to think
it is the only bird to behave in this way.

But there are birds in half a dozen
other families that do so as well.

Here in Argentina,
brown-hooded gulls are nesting.

Gulls are so vigorous and enterprising

that they might seem the last birds
likely to be tricked, but on occasion they are.

A duckling.

Its true parents, cuckoo ducks, are far away
from the nest where they dumped their egg.

Their offspring will never see them,
just as they never saw their parents.

The duckling cannot know
that it is quite different from the baby gull

which has now hatched out alongside it.

Nonetheless, something tells it
that it must not stay with this other nestling.

0n its very first evening, it leaves.

Unlike the cuckoo, it makes no further
demands on the bird that incubated it.

Even though it is only a few hours old,
it is perfectly capable of fending for itself.

Young golden-eyes also have
a somewhat precipitate start to life.

The female golden-eye
regularly lays in a woodpecker's hole.

But when her young
have got over that handicap,

she solicitously leads them down to water,

for that's the only place where they, like most
ducklings, can gather food for themselves.

Here in British Columbia,
there is no shortage of lakes,

and their mother goes ahead
and calls to them to join her.

This lake, however,
has already been claimed -

by another female golden-eye with her brood.

And she is very possessive.

There's going to be trouble.

The newcomer has to leave.

But her ducklings can't fly away with her.

So they join the resident family.

That's no problem for mother.
They can fend for themselves.

And having an enlarged family
reduces the chances of her own ducklings

being taken by a hungry fish or a hawk.

In the end, she may accumulate
a flock of twenty or more.

A river in the high Andes.

Unlikely though it may seem,

some ducks manage to live on
these racing waters as well - torrent ducks.

These have made their nest
in the rocks thirty feet above the water,

high enough to be safe
if the river were suddenly to rise.

But that means that these ducklings
also have a very hazardous journey to make.

Even mother has a little trouble.

The racing water might seem to pose
even greater problems than the slippery rocks.

But the ducklings are so buoyant
that they float on the surface,

and are in no danger of drowning.

Nor are they swept away,
for, miraculously, they know instinctively

how to shelter in the eddies
in the lee of a boulder.

And once launched,
they, too, can feed for themselves.

Summer on the Arctic tundra.

Brent geese came up here a few weeks ago,

to feed on the newly-sprouting
vegetation and to nest.

Now their offspring have hatched.

They too will have to face
a dangerous journey before they can feed.

This pair built their nest
within a few yards of a snowy owl's nest.

That was good sense, for ground-nesting
birds here are likely to be attacked by foxes.

Owls are quite prepared to tackle foxes.

And so they seldom venture near.

While they were incubating,
the geese benefited greatly

by nesting beside
such a powerful neighbors,

but now their eggs are hatching
and that will change things.

Owls feed on lemmings.

And lemmings are about
the same size as goslings.

Somehow, these little creatures
will have to avoid becoming one more meal

for a hungry owl

But they must leave their nest
if they are not to starve.

Their parents are well aware of the danger.

Equally, the male owl can see
that there is a meal to be had.

Parental bravery wins the day.

Two birds to guard the young are good.

Three are even better.

Magpie geese live in northern Australia,

and the journey their goslings have
to make in order to feed is also dangerous.

Magpie males are very unusual in that
normally they will mate with two females,

who will both lay in the same nest.

So it is usually three adults,

and only occasionally two,
that escort their young.

In the skies above, a sea eagle.

It spots a trio with chicks...

..and they manage to see it off.

A pair are an easier target.

Angry and brave the two adults may be,
but it's too late.

Attacks can come not only from the sky,
but, more unexpectedly, from below.

Crocodiles.

Even the adults themselves
are now in real danger.

And the goslings are very vulnerable indeed.

The pair have made it, but only two
of their five young have survived.

The trio has succeed
in bringing down four or five chicks.

Here in the feeding swamps,
there is comparative safety.

All can join in keeping eagles away,
and the water is too shallow for crocodiles.

Nonetheless, overall,
the journey cost many young lives.

But the families that lost least were the trios.

So there really is safety in numbers.

And here in the Seychelles,
numbers are astronomical -

a million sooty terns.

Here, surely,
there must be safety from predators.

But egrets stand around
the fringes of the colony,

and they will swiftly seize a chick
if it's left unguarded.

A chick is such a good meal

that the egrets will even risk stabs
from the beak of a parent to get one.

Further into the colony, the chicks are
surrounded by a great crowd of adults,

and are very much safer.

Even a few yards from the edge,

the egrets face such determined
and effective opposition from all directions

that they stand little chance of success.

Chicks that have the luck
to hatch in the very center

are five times more likely
to survive than those on the edge.

And there's another way for a bird
to protect its chicks.

Rear them in a place so remote

that few other creatures
can get there to threaten them -

a place like the Australian desert.

Here banded stilts nested
beside a temporary lake.

Soon after their eggs hatched, the females
left and started nesting again elsewhere.

Now the youngsters have gathered
in groups several hundred strong,

with only just a few males left behind
to keep an eye on them.

The job is not too difficult,
for the salty waters are full of tiny shrimps

that the young stilts
can collect for themselves.

For other birds, however,
finding food is so difficult

that even two parents
can't feed their chicks unaided.

Farther south in Australia,
in the eucalyptus woodland,

white-winged choughs have that problem.

Their young feed on beetle grubs,
and those are so difficult to excavate

that a pair will need at least two adult
helpers to keep one chick fully fed.

And the more helpers they have,
the more chicks they can raise.

This chick is almost fully grown
and so has a very big appetite.

All four birds labor away to keep it supplied.

Eventually, however, it will
change from being a liability into an asset,

a young bird that can help
in rearing a chick next year.

Another group of choughs
appears in the trees.

It has many more members.

The residents are worried, and show
their agitation by goggling their eyes.

This is a press gang.

They are kidnappers.

And this is what they are after.

One of the raiders
starts to display to the chick,

trying to entice it away
from its parental group.

And it follows.

A kidnapping has been achieved.

The raiders feed their new recruit,

and it joins the group's own youngster.

Now they have two juveniles.

Next year, the support team will be so big

that they may be able to raise
three or even four chicks.

So having difficulties in raising baby
can lead to sociability among adults.

But perhaps the most sociable of all birds,

birds that behave almost
like a troop of little monkeys,

live here in the deserts of the Middle East.

An Arabian babbler.

But you hardly ever see just one.

Arabian babblers do everything together
if they possibly can,

and that certainly includes taking a bath.

After a bath,
the whole group sunbathe together.

Once dry, they preen each other.

In fact, Arabian babblers
do most things as a group.

They all share the labor
of collecting food for the group's chicks.

They also share the responsibilities
for defense, taking it in turn to act as sentry.

When another sentry comes on duty,

it brings a morsel of food
as part of the hand-over ritual

A viper!

The sentry sounds the alarm.

The whole group assembles.

By creating a commotion, they ensure
that everyone is aware of the danger.

They also discomfort the snake
and perhaps distract it from hunting.

It may also be that some of them,

by deliberately
taunting the snake at close quarters,

are demonstrating their strength and fitness

in a way that will give them
respect and seniority within the group.

Once the danger is past,
life returns to normal

The sentry goes back to guard duties,

and the youngsters
start to play among themselves.

Many young birds
are abandoned by their parents

almost as soon as they are capable of flight,

so they have little chance to play
and gain the skills they will need as adults.

But the babblers form such a coherent group

that the juveniles
can spend time doing just that.

For the young anhingha in Florida,
learning through play is essential

If it doesn't become a skilled juggler quickly,

it will starve.

It must learn to do this.

0f course, it is important when playing
with a stick not to take the game too far.

Gannets also fish by diving,

and that is a skill that can't be practiced
by the young until they can fly.

The parents deal with this problem
by feeding their young so generously

that, by the time they've fledged
into their dark immature plumage,

they've accumulated reserves of fat

that will sustain them while they are
learning to catch fish for themselves.

So now they are heavier than their parents.

But that extra weight is a liability.

It makes it more difficult for the young to fly.

The seas beside
this South African colony are dangerous,

and not only because of the pounding surf.

Had there been cliffs from which
to launch themselves into the air,

as there are around many gannet colonies,

their first flight would be easier.

But there aren't.

No wonder
they appear nervous about taking off.

Fur seals are waiting.

But in spite of the seals,

many young gannets
do manage to get into the air.

Flight for young birds is the essential skill,
and the penalties of failure can be fatal,

so birds do all they can to prepare for it.

The young open-bill storks, now fully grown,

are strengthening their flight muscles
with regular exercises.

A young hummingbird cautiously
practices hovering while still in the nest,

even though that makes life
somewhat difficult for its sibling.

0n the tundra, the snowy owl chick,

still semi-clothed in down,
has got plenty of room for practice.

And the surviving brown pelican
at last leaves its platform nest.

It joins other youngsters
sitting at the edge of the sea.

Each has already survived
many perils in its young life.

As a chick, it fought battles
with its brothers and sisters and won.

For nine or ten weeks, it was
devotedly fed and protected by its parents,

but now it's on its own.

If it in its turn is to raise young,

it has many more battles ahead of it
out there on the sea

and in the air.

Life for all birds everywhere can be hard,

but some species
have become specially adapted

to the harshest environments on Earth.

How they do so
you can see in the next programme,

the last in this series about The Life of Birds.