In response to my statement that

>" ... researchers are coming to believe that at least in most cases the
>adults do restrict or stop feeding the chicks just prior to fledging,
>perhaps hastening their departure.

Deborah Wisti-Peterson asked

> do the parents restrict feedings, or do the chicks begin to refuse
> feedings just prior to fledging?

I haven't been fortunate to witness this myself, but apparently it's the
parents that stop feeding the chick. As far as I know it's rare for a chick
to refuse food unless perhaps it just ate a fish offered by one parent and
is full when the other delivers the next meal. The chicks sometimes go
through several minutes of begging, even tugging at one end of the fish,
while the newly arrived parent sits there as if catatonic, fish clutched
firmly in its beak. (But then, it just made that flight in from the sea,
and why shouldn't it want to rest a minute?...)

-- Janet Hardin
Port Townsend, WA
wings at olympus.net