Would a bird without parental interaction learn to fly?

My guess is almost certainly yes. As with us and walking, the trait is just too crucial to the survival of the bird. It’s gotta be instinctual.

Make that instinctive.

Yes, instinct, but, if the baby fell out of it’s nest early and could only flutter a bit it would die as the parents would still tend to it on the ground until it could get up into the bushes or trees.
Fledglings still beg for food for a few weeks after leaving the nest as it is. The parents still help them make the full transition to self sufficiency.

Yes. Instinctive. I raised a mallard hen by herself and she flew just fine.

A certain amount of fledglings leaving the nest too early are requisite to feed the hungry scavengers down below. Why birds lay more than one egg.

Eventually yes. Death would be the result of failure to do so, and that to extinction. Not all fledglings, BTW, have the benefit of parental interaction.

Great question, though.

I saw a David Attemborough documentary about birds & these newborn chicks had to throw themselves from their nest perched on a mountain ledge. Pure instinct & they were not capable of flight yet just a neccessity to survive, so yeah, they just know.

An instinct guides behaviors that teach a bird to fly. When I was a boy, we found that something had attacked a sparrow’s nest. On the ground was a baby bird that had not even developed pinfeathers. We took it home and kept it alive by keeping it warm and feeding it baby food with an eyedropper. It thrived. Eventually it began to fly about our trailer. It would join us when we had a meal, walking from plate to plate sampling our food. It live a long time and its death was the result of an accident.

@ucme Is that the same documentary where these fledglings fall near 1,000 feet and rely on a good bounce to survive when they hit the ground?

@Cruiser That’s the one, amazing to watch how resilient the fluffy little buggers are.

It may vary per type of bird. The anatomy of birds varies a lot. A raptor would have different anatomy and physiology than say a humming bird.

But I would agree with most above that they could probably figure it out. As long as they were old enough to have the feathers required for flight.