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Parents may have to keep their chicks warm or cool, fed and healthy for months before they fly the nest. The first thing any chick needs is food, and finches have an extraordinary array of Feed Me signs around their beaks - from luminous nodules to black and yellow beak markings and striped tongues. The first meal a great-crested grebe chick gets isn?t a fish but a feather. Feathers are gently offered until they line the chick?s stomach and so aid the later digestion of bony fish. Storks give their young cooling showers in the midday heat by spitting water over them, and David Attenborough gets caught in the downpour. Then the birds spread their wings over the chicks like parasols to provide welcome shade. On village ponds throughout Britain, child abuse and even infanticide is being committed as coots turn on their young. When food is short, parents may resort to pecking their chicks.