Innatism Vs Empiricism

[Sriya Prasanna]

Picture was taken during our first trip with MNS @ GIR Gujarath. This picture is very close to my heart and I thank Vikas Madhav for taking it. It was the right moment. To me , I still don't know which is the parent bird and which is the young one. Because they both look the same in size .Is the mother ( on the left ) regurgitation into the young ones mouth, or is the young one ( on the left ) taking from the mother. experts help me. I put myself in the birds place and felt that the one on the left is the parent bird ( adult ) as it bends down to make the feed easy.

Shutter speed 1/664 sec ;Lens Aperture F/5.7;Focal Length 300mm; F Number F/ 5.6 Exposure time 1/ 640 sec; ISO - ISO 100, Date 26.04.2011, time 11.17am

Picture taken By Vikas Madhav. When he was in 7th grade 11 years old

[Kumaran Narayanaswamy]

he has captured the correct moment.... the pic would have got wow factor if both eyes were in contact and sharp....but am sure this event stayed hardly for few seconds and he would not have got time to position himself and get it sharp....

composition wise i think the birds could have been captured a bit lower in the frame... but overall he has got a greattt shot

[Ragoo Rao]

That's an Excellent moment captured Sriya. These are Chestnut Shouldered Petronias.A Mother feeding a fledgeling. The feature to identify a juvenile is to look for Gape-line, the place where the hard-beak joins the mouth. This will be looking either pale- yellow or whitish and thick in juveniles & chicks.They are very elastic and the chick can open the mouth very wide for the parent to place the feed in the throat.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Very nice interaction and behaviour. This is also a good example of how we arrive at the same conclusion using different logics. One has given expert opinion and the other as a mom has understood the body language.

The eye contact with the youngster is right here. One can learn many things while watching these birds.

[Sriya Prasanna]

Thanks for naming the bird , I completely forgot. My concentration went on to give a good caption. Vikas was very happy to see that he gets comments from experts

[Sriya Prasanna]

Mouth being "very elastic and the chick can open the mouth very wide for the parent to place the feed in the throat"

Yes have made similar observation in the common Myna chick and Asian Koel chick too

[Roopak Gangadharan]

nice moment captured here. well done

tfs
roopak