to everyone who guessed these "mystery" chicks were galliformes you were indeed correct. however more to the point if you guess they were peafowl, aka, peachicks, aka peacocks, and/or aka peahen you were absolutely right!
so congrats to both Albertonykus and Danonychus on this challenge!
here are the little guys with their mommy, a full grown indian peahen or a Pavo cristatus.
when i saw the chicks (which at times was hard, due to their great camouflage!) i was floored! i would not have pictured peacocks having this exact colouration when they were newly hatched...
not that i thought they should have the crazy bright adult colours either. you can't grow up to full size if your flamboyant your whole life. predators would like that just a little bit too much!
no i was confused and surprised by the chicks colour as i know what a teen peafowl's colours were. these right here. i would have thought they'd have had these colours since hatching. obviously i was wrong.
much like the assiniboine park zoo in winnipeg mentioned by Danonychus, the calgary zoo has many peafowl that are allowed to simply wander around the grounds. i find it interesting that all the peahens i saw had chicks of varying sizes and ages with them (as all these photos are from my trip to zoo today). i would have thought they'd all breed at about the same time and have similar aged offspring. obviously not the case.
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