Thursday, May 31, 2007

Scoping Out Chicks

Thanks to my grandparents' influence in my early life, I've always enjoyed watching birds. Since moving to Arizona last Summer, I've become pretty near obsessed with watching swallows. They're fascinating! This nest of little guys is at the base of our stairwell, so I get to see them every day, usually multiple times a day. Only 4 chicks are visible, but there are actually 5 who live there. I really like them. Last year, there was a nest with 3 chicks in it by our stairwell. It was fun to watch them grow up and eventually fly away. I'm excited to see these little guys do the same. This post actually brings up an interesting question Jenny raised the other day. I've been calling baby swallows chicks, but are all baby birds really called chicks? If anyone knows, please feel free to answer.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey Josh,
It really depends on the type of bird. Most common song and backyard birds are referred to as baby birds (Such as baby sparrow).Once they develop feathers and leave the nest they would be considered fledglings until they reach maturity.
Others are chicks, such as chickens, pheasant, seagulls.
You also have your eaglets and owlets, and so on.
But I think most baby birds are referred to as chicks like most tissues are referred to as kleenex.
Interesting is a baby pigeon is a squab, just like you can find on restaurant menus. Yum.
And no matter how many pipes a dog smokes, he will always just be a dog.

Kara said...

I didn't know you were so into birds. You can check out my birds and blooms magazine if you like.

Matt- i really liked the tissue/kleenex reference. It just brought everything home to me.

Josh said...

Yep, I love birds. I've actually never really told anyone that before, aside from Jen. She does her best to humor me, but I think she gets tired of hearing me go on about the swallows.

Jenny LaBo said...

I think he just like things that fly the other day he was enthralled with a plastic bag that was up in the air flying around. Something about an updraft.

Matt- I agree that the tissue/kleenex reference really pulled it all together.

Josh said...

It wasn't just your typical bag caught in a breeze, though. It was a plastic grocery bag, probably 100 feet in the air. What's remarkable is that it didn't come down; it just stayed at 100 feet and drifted back and forth over the runway with the air currents. Those are the thermals I have to deal with every time I fly, and it's interesting (to me, at least) to see their effect on something like a grocery bag.