When do birds fly after they've hatched?

Question

We live in the second story of our apartment building, and we have two bikes resting outside. We haven't used them for a while, and there's two helmets hanging from them. A pair of sparrows have built a really solid nest in my brother's helmet, and laid eggs there

The eggs have hatched just today, but we're moving in a few weeks. We don't want to disturb the sparrows and their babies, so...

WHEN WILL THE BABIES FLY!? haha.

thank you!

Answer 1

you, and the sparrows, might get lucky.

it takes a few weeks for them to get feathers, and get strong enough to fly.

so it's a race between your few weeks, and their few weeks.

http://www.ntu.ac.uk/ares/prospective_st...

this claims only a couple weeks, but having raised a robin (that was displaced by a cat) i'm pretty sure it's more than that.

maybe 6 weeks, but it was more than 60 years ago, so the memory is a bit faint.

Answer 2

Fledging: usually 14 -17 days after hatching. Young are capable of more or less sustained flight upon fledging. Young stay with adult male for a few days, then gather with other young into foraging and roosting flocks. They are independent (feeding themselves) 7–10 days after leaving the nest.

I'm a sparrow you know  :>