Nest Investments Kevin Burrell
If you’ re a bird, there are two basic strategies for getting your chicks from egg to independent living: precocial and altricial.
Precocial birds start their lives as if fired from a cannon. They’ re already capable of a lot of adulty things like walking and running or even swimming and flying, without wasting a lot of time on the Wonder Years. Quail, for instance, hit the ground running— literally. And ducklings take to the water like— well, like a duck to water. The award for the most abrupt empty-nest experience imaginable should probably go to the Hooded Merganser,
a widespread North American duck that nests in tree cavities up to fifty feet off the ground. When the chicks hatch, they’ ll need to climb out of the hollow and then get up the guts to take a Mission: Impossible – style jump to the hard ground below.
Unlike these precocial birds, altricial birds come into the world with few advantages and low expectations. Featherless, sightless, helpless, clueless— they look less like a bird and more like a dog’ s rubber chew toy. It’ s difficult to imagine that one day they’ ll have the sharp coloring of a Western Tanager
18