Two types of baby birds

Baby birds that hatch with their running shoes on are called precocial. Precocial means "ripened
beforehand." (The word comes from the same Latin source as "precocious.") They hatch with their eyes
open, and as soon as their downy feathers dry, they start scurrying about, following their parents
and searching the ground for something to eat. Other precocial birds, like the killdeer, are
chickens, ducks, and quail. None of these precocial babies lies in the nest and gets waited on.

Birds that hatch blind, naked, and helpless are called altricial, which comes from a Greek word
meaning "wet nurse." Robins are altricial, as are blue jays, cardinals and most other birds. The
hatchlings lie helplessly in their nests, relying solely on their parents to bring them food and
push it down their throats. It's two weeks or more before they mature enough to leave the nest, and
even after they leave it, their parents are still feeding them.

Precocial birds stay in the egg twice as long as altricial birds, so they have more time to develop.
A one-day-old killdeer chick is actually two weeks older than a one-day-old robin nestling. Although
adult robins and killdeer are the same size, a killdeer's egg is twice as big as a robin's. There's
more nourishment built into the killdeer egg, to sustain the embryo for its longer time in the shell.
~ https://www.birdwatching.com/stories/killdeer.html

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