(CNN) You may admire the birds in your garden for their commitment to their young -- endlessly catching bugs and delivering them back to the brood of chicks in their nest. But researchers from the University of Illinois have uncovered a darker side to songbird parenting. They have found many species deliberately evict their young chicks -- before they are ready to fly. The study, led by the university's College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, looked into the behavior of 18 songbird species in various habitats across the United States and found they all forced some of their chicks out of the nest. The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found all of the species studied "manipulated" some of their offspring into leaving the nest early.

Source: CNN November 16, 2020 20:03 UTC