It is Friday – time to leave the nest and fly into the weekend,

If you were a bird and could leave the nest early, what would you be called?

“Precocial,” because precocial birds are on-the-go birds who start doing as soon as they hatch. Precocial has the same root as “precocious,” indicating early maturity. I mean these birds are out of the nest in a flash. They are not only precocial, they are “nidifugous,” from the Latin nidu for “nest” and fugere for “to flee.” To say it well and impress your friends, “All nidifugous birds are precocial.” Many of the smaller birds are precocial, as well as birds that nest on the ground, like chickens, ducks and geese.

On the other perch, we see the nest with the young “altricial” birds. Those baby birds are not even perching yet, because they take more time getting used to things. They need a little more attention from mom and dad – a swallow of this, a peck on the back, a lullaby warble and other baby bird stuff to help them nurture and develop. Altricial derives from the Latin alere which means “to nurse and nourish.”  Many of the larger birds, like eagles, hawks and herons, are atricial.

These terms are not reserved for birds. Mammals are also precocial and altricial. Which do you think you were when you were a baby?

When birds do jump out of that nest, they fly into the sky and through the clouds. Those clouds are “evanescent.” A thing is “evanescent” if it tends to disappear quickly, to dissipate and be of relatively short duration. Clouds are like that – in the sky one moment and gone the next. Someone can be evanescent if he or she fades away and passes from our sight, like a bird flying in the sky who turns toward the horizon and vanishes into another realm. I wonder if that bird was altricial or precocial when it was young. It certainly was evanescent now.

Keep a quick watch – you never know what you might glimpse, or what might glimpse you,

Grandpa Jim

PS: A new Uncle Joe story is scheduled to be here Saturday morning. Do you think someone in that story could be evanescent, or at least hoped by others there to soon be? Hurry over and figure out what just blurred by.