I can’t figure out where I saw this, but at some point late last week I realiz—OH!
It was in the Wikipedia article for peafowl.
See, when you look for Peacock’s Wikipedia page—the streaming service (Peacock is the streaming service, I mean. Not Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a website God made so that I can find things to blog about that keep people engaged with this website when they aren’t interested in the specific sports about which we’re producing content in a given season of the year.)—Google thinks you might be looking for information about birds. It especially thinks this if once a day, you Google, “BIRDS!” (Do it, I dare you. The first thing that comes up for me right now is a rad picture of two parrots looking like they stopped talking about something exciting the moment you walked up.)
Shocked that Wikipedia has an article titled Peafowl rather than Peacock, I read the preview:
“Peafowl are forest birds that nest on the ground, but roost in trees.”
That is not how I would define a peacock.
I would say:
THEY HAVE THE CRAZIEST FEATHERS. EVER.
This is why I’ve only ever made one Wikipedia edit in my life.
Anyway, peafowl are forest birds that nest on the ground, but roost in trees, and the reason they’re called peafowl and not peacocks is that peafowl is gender-neutral. Peachicken is also acceptable, peacocks refers only to the men. Also? A group of these birds can be called an ostentation or a muster. (I feel like those words for groups of animals are just a list someone made when they were bored and someone else found and took seriously.) What’s the difference between nesting and roosting?
That’s what we’re here to figure out.
Looks like it just means “hanging out.” Roosting is hanging out, or maybe sleeping. Nesting is more self-explanatory. I guess I always think of nests as birds’ homes, but that’s probably only when they’re having babies, isn’t it. Empty-nesters are humans. When birds are done using their nests, they just go back to hanging out with their bros.
Oh, and I was looking for Peacock’s Wikipedia page—the streaming service—because I was confused about why Peacock and Hulu both exist. I did learn the answer. I usually learn the answer if I click enough links.
