The Sound of Peacocks

What is the content on the home page of a web site about peacocks? The intentions, of course, should be to capture the surfers attention so that they will check out the rest of the site and hopefully purchase one of your products, leave a message or interact with the site in some way that is was designed for. Well, I looked high and low and the weirdest thing that ready graber my attention as a story about the rather annoying sounds that peacocks make. So here we go...

The first three peafowl we acquired were purchased indirectly for a zoo. The peafowl were mature birds; two females (peahens) and one male (peacock). The peacock had a beautiful five foot tail while the females were rather drab except for their emerald necks and their little blue crowns. It wasn't long after they arrive that we heard this awful ear piercing...

"Honnnnnk!!"

• At twilight, they flew up into the trees and the males would call out to each other and to distant birds

  "hellllllp hellllllllllp!"


• The peahens, on the other hand, sort of say

  "hell-O, hell-O!"

• Sometimes the males call out with a sad dove-like call

  "Ohhhhh ohhhhh,"

  sometimes accompanied by the neighborhood dogs howling at (or with or whatever) the local coyotes.
  
• When the males are fanned out, and there are several around, they go

  "Aaaaahhh Aaaaahhh Aaaaahhh!"

  maybe up to six times each, back and forth between each other. I admit, this one really gets to us at times, especially if your on the phone; it's hard to hear or be heard!
  
• If they are disturbed in the night, especially if the moon is up, they will call back and forth with the

  "Aaaaahhh!"

  calls - somethings this will care on all night long... usually my wife will put a pillow on her head to get back to sleep. (I always sleep right through it...) This all-night-calling happens throughout the breeding season, and we all get used to the noise - I've been told that even the neighbors don't mind it...Sort of like sleeping in the jungle.
  

• Near the end of the mating season, their poor voices get hoarse, and sometimes they can be heard to say...

  "braaay!"

  or even

  "squeeeeak!"

  We all get a good laugh out of this one!
• At feeding time they will allow you to get very close and you will hear a soft...

  "clriccck clriccck!" I wonder if they are trying to imitate a chichen.

When their calls stop in August, it actually seems TOO quiet and we miss it! Peafowl have super-sensitive hearing and they react to just about any sound. Our peafowl know our voices and if they are not around you can call them and they will come on the run however, if guests are around, they are usually more cautious and will keep their distance until they get used to the new strangers. When it is cold out in the late fall, we always enjoy seeing peacocks on the roof, calling out in the early morning, steam coming out of their becks, making them look like fire-breathing dragons. They truely are amazing creatures!