Re: do any birds mature without parental supervison after birth

Although I cannot be absolutely sure that there are no birds that mature 
without any parental supervision, I would be extreemly surprised to find 
one.  There are a few main reasons that it is very unlikely.  Birds, unlike 
reptiles, have learned behavior.  What song to sing, what things to eat, 
and how to fly are all behaviors taught by the parents of a chick.  Many 
chicks soon after hatching will follow the first relatively large object 
they see.  The young of the European greylag goose, Anser anser, do so, and 
they soon learn the object's behavior characteristics - whether the object 
is the parent goose, a man, a boat, or some other moving object.  
     However, some birds do leave their eggs in other bird's nests.  In 
this way, the chicks do not grow up with *their* parents' supervision.  For 
example, the cowbird lays its eggs in other's nests.  Usually the cowbird 
egg is the first to hatch and then procedes to instinctively push the other 
eggs out of the nest before they can hatch.  In this way, the cowbird chick 
gets all of the food that the foster parents provide, while the real 
parents can go elsewhere to lay more eggs.
     I hope this information is interesting to you even though I can not 
give an absolute answer to your question.  Keep asking good questions! :]

                                         -Marcy LaViollette