Baby Birds Blackmail Parents for More Food

Baby birds appear to be pretty helpless creatures, cheeping incessantly and stretching their featherless necks out of the nest to get food plopped directly in their mouths. But when hunger strikes and the nest’s cupboards are empty, what’s a baby bird to do? Certain species, like the pied babbler, have figured out a way for young birds to blackmail their caretakers in order to get more food.

All the adults in a pied babbler community share the burden of breeding and feeding their collective offspring. For the first few months of their lives, baby pied babblers rely completely on these adults to keep their tummies full.

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