h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have always thought that a ‘nestling’ is a young bird, still resident in the nest.

A ‘fledgling’ is a nestling that is beginning to grow its flight feathers. Once these are fully developed it becomes ‘fully fledged’, the whole process being called ‘fledging’. My OED would seem to confirm these interpretations.

A young bird’s emergence from the nest is variously described in normal conversation as its ‘first flight’, ‘leaving the nest’, ‘flying the nest’ or ‘fleeing the nest’, depending on the level of enthusiasm, trepidation or compulsion felt by the youngster.

Google produces another definition (extelligence.co.uk) – To take care of a young bird until it is ready for flight. Surely it is the nestling who fledges and the parents rear the young?

Recent TV programmes lead me to assume there is a different meaning to the verb ‘to fledge’. The word seems to be used to mean the process of making the first flight. I would dispute this.

Surely ‘fledge’ is the same word as ‘fletch’, the action of attaching feathers to an arrow, the profession of a fletcher, thus fledging is to do with acquiring feathering and has nothing to do with flight (apart from the fact that a featherless bird will not be able to fly). Does anyone have an explanation for this new usage?

I agree with your interpretations, Bridie.

Do we need an explanation for a new usage? Isn't ignorance the normal reason?

I think that this will muddy the waters sufficiently

Websters:
Main Entry: fledge
Pronunciation: 'flej
Function: verb
Inflected Form(s): fledged; fledg·ing
Etymology: fledge capable of flying, from Middle English flegge, from Old English -flycge; akin to Old High German flucki capable of flying, Old English flEogan to fly -- more at FLY
intransitive senses, of a bird : to acquire the feathers necessary for flight or independent activity
transitive senses
1 : to rear until ready for flight or independent activity
2 : to cover with or as if with feathers or down
3 : to furnish (as an arrow) with feathers

Here's what the shorter OED has to say (abridged):

Fledge (adj) 1. Fit to fly; having the feathers developed, fledged (Middle English). 2. Furnished for flight

Fledge (verb) 1. Of a young bird: To become fully plumed. 2. To bring up (a young bird) until its feathers are grown. 3. To furnish or adorn with or as with feathersor down. 4. To feather (an arrow).

Fledgeling, fledgling (adj) 1. A young bird just fledged.

Seems it can mean just about everything alluded to in post 1 of this thread.

I agree with most of what you say, though I have never heard anyone talk of the parent birds fledging their chicks. Nestlings are fledged by the process of fledging. I know we seem to be discouraged from using passive tenses these days but there isn't much a small bird can do about its development.

My main quibble is with the use of the term to indicate the first flight of the bird from the nest. English has plenty of terms for this, many of them used in the human context too. To refer to a bird as fledging by leaping from the nest seems to me a misuse of the word by people who don't know what they're talking about!