The story of the peahen and peababies

So, as you are no doubt aware, the Detroit Zoo has peafowl. They're not particularly kept, they just sort of run around the zoo. This isn't an odd thing, I've been to other zoos that also have them. Peafowl are pretty easy to take care of, and so long as you don't mind the noise (oh the noise, noise, noise, noise!) they're a neat addition to the whole experience. They just sort of roam around the place, waiting for someone to notice that they look and awful lot like turkeys with a thing for musical theater and decide to try and liven up thanksgiving.

I’ve often wondered if they buy birds, or if they get them the natural way. Well, I’ve discovered that they get at least some of them the natural way. There will be better pictures of the babies later, right now I want to talk about why peahens will never get mother of the year…




So there was this one little bird, and it fell asleep next to its mother’s foot.





You can see there that it fell asleep, but I didn’t notice until the birds had moved off to look for another place to hang out. When I saw the little left over baby, I was sort of worried. It wasn’t moving and no one seemed to notice that it had been left behind, but me.




After what I judged to be far too long a time, it raised its little tiny head. It then started to look around. The mother was moving off even further, leaving the baby behind. I was worried that some errant hawk might swoop in and eat the little guy.



I was sort of worried about the little guy, but then he stood up. By the way, if you’re wondering, a baby peacock in trouble makes a sound like an adult only tiny. It’s was the tiniest little squeaking howl I’d ever heard.



This drew the mother and her brood back to the little lost brother.






Everyone reunited, they went the other way from where the mother had gone in the first place.
The point is that little peafowl are cute and have tiny little squawks.

Here is an adult’s squawk…



Now just make that barely squeaky toy levels and you’ll have it.