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fully fledged Dunnock constantly calling for food (1 Viewer)

Hi

We love and welcome birds into our garden.

However a strange thing has happened over the last week, a fully grown Dunnock is calling for food, more or less constantly through daylight hours. It can feed itself and fly well as we have seen it.

I have to say its getting a bit like Chinese water torture! Does anyone know why it is doing this? We have had countless fledglings over many years and this has never happened before.

Ps I have also checked for injuries etc.
 
I have a few species over here that go mad with the calling once their chicks have fledged. Could it possibly be that?

Hi there and a warm welcome to you from those of us on staff here at BirdForum :t:
 
You originally stated that it was a fully grown Dunnock. Then the juvies are just begging to be fed and parents are leaving them on their own to learn ;)
 
You originally stated that it was a fully grown Dunnock. Then the juvies are just begging to be fed and parents are leaving them on their own to learn ;)

Sorry guys, Perhaps I didn't make it clear.

I have watched fledgling /young adults for years and years, I know that they will for a while follow their parents about even tho they can feed themselves.

But this is entirely different behaviour. It does a single tweet call, hour upon hour, non stop all day.

It's not the same noise as baby birds in a nest and it's not the same behaviour that we have had lots of experience in hearing with other fledglings over the years.

It's constant, and we have watched it feed itself in between too!
 
As has been said this sounds like a begging call. All young birds will do this, but with considerable variation in expectation and duration. Just like some young tits never have what it takes to leave the nest hole and stay inside and starve to death, it seems here we have an individual that wants as much attention from its parents that it can get. Evolutionary variation that leads to changes by natural selection in some sense I suppose.

He should get the message that it's not working that well and give up in a day or two!
Mick
 
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