Raising Kids

About ten feet outside the window in front of the treadmill are two bird feeders: one with sunflower seed and the other with our home-made 'birdyburger', highly prized by woodpeckers. I generally walk at about 3:00 pm and there is seldom much bird activity at that time of the day unless the weather is cold.
As I trudged along on the treadmill, a nice bright male Purple Finch landed on the feeder, followed shortly by two fledglings. The two fledglings began the baby bird begging routine, opening their beaks upward and fluttering their wings. The male pulled a few sunflower seeds out of the feeder and dropped them on the bottom tray. Still, the fledglings begged. After a few minutes the male flew off, quickly followed by the fledglings.
A few minutes later the same routine began again: the male landed, the fledglings followed, and then the fledglings started begging. This time, though, one of the fledglings caught on, and it started eating sunflower seeds on its own, while its sibling continued to beg. After a few minutes the male left again, followed by the begging fledgling. The fledgling that had learned to feed itself, though, stayed at the feeder and continued to eat.
About ten minutes later the male reappeared, followed by a fledgling. The first fledgling, now named Ralph in my internal report of the show, continued to eat, and the second fledgling, now named Carrot, continued to beg. Again, the male left, followed by Carrot, and, later, yet again the two returned. Still, Carrot only begged, and still, Ralph was standing in the same place, eating seed after seed. Finally, Carrot learned to feed herself, while Ralph continued to eat.
This is all pretty interesting, if you are walking on a treadmill and have nothing else to occupy your interest. The male was teaching the fledglings to eat sunflower seeds, which is pretty complex behavior from a brain the size of a BB.