nestling

(pronunciation: the letter ‘t’ is silent or the letter ‘t’ is not pronounced — for the different pronunciations of this word, please click here)

a young bird (chick; baby bird) that is still in the nest and unable to fly, and is looked after by the parent birds

Special Features:

nestlings with mouths wide open for food

The only job of a nestling is to eat and eat. They make shrill calls, called ‘cheep’, and keep their very big mouths open most of the time to urge their parents to bring more and more food which is mostly worms and insects!

Most nestlings get into ‘sibling rivalry’, i.e. they fight with the other babies (their brothers and sisters) in the nest for the food, and in some kinds of birds, the older chicks push the younger or weaker ones over the edge of the nest to make the competition for food less!!

Figures of Speech:
nestling (noun) = a child; a baby; a young child who still needs parental care