pea hen

I casually stalked the peacock family the other night. I was rather tickled to watch the male peacock (Ben) escort his family to where the peahen (Celia) and the four chicks have been roosting for the last 5 weeks. Once Celia and the chicks had flown up to their nightly spot he came back in a hurry to fly up into the olive tree where he has roosted since forever. When the chicks are old enough to roost without being nestled under the wing of Celia, they will all move to the olive tree.

The 4 chicks are now too big to all fit right under Celia. 2 nestle in under her breast feathers and there is now 1 under each wing. She needs to puff up her feathers quite a lot to accommodate them all. I really don't know how she sleeps, balanced on that beam, out in the elements, always aware of any threat, and with 4 little babies all jiggling around.