Naieva Bookist: Chicken or Reality?

Eva Graalman Masterpiece

Charlie Morey Photograph

Headstrong Chicken

When Charlie Morey posted this photo of a chicken he met walking around at the LA Zoo, I couldn't help but think that this proves everybody wrong when they say, "Unlike Naieva, I deal in Reality!"

In MyYoT (Year of Technology) I've been getting on Facebook and making new friends and renewing old ones. Charlie was the Editor of Dirt Rider magazine when I was the Gopher. Today, he is a Fabulous Freelance Photographer and I've become a Big Time Chicken.

Our conversation on Facebook:

Eva Graalman What is this thing? I drew a kid's book called Headstrong Chicken and this gal is exactly what I had in mind. Didn't know it actually exists.
Charlie Morey ‎- It's a Southern Crested Screamer, Eva. Here's a link to the information page about it on the Los Angeles Zoo's website:

My Headstrong Chicken is a cross between a hideous bird-of-prey vulture, turkey, and a hint of chicken with a serious sinus condition. She is a girl with a roster head-thingy.

What the LA Zoo nearly has to say about her:

Headstrong Screamers mate for life. Both male and female help build the nest, a large pile or platform made of reeds and other plant matter located either in shallow water or on land near water or water bowl if provided by humans. Two to seven eggs are laid, and both parents share incubation duties but the female just want to be left alone or be adopted. Hatching occurs 42 – 45 days after laying and then randomly ever after. Both parents use the unhatchable eggs for golf, tennis, soccer or various other sports.

STATUS: The crested screamer is listed as Least Concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and of pretty much no concern to the general public. However, it is, as is other wildlife in South America or rural America flea joins, feeling pressure due to deforestation and destruction of wetlands or neat neighborhoods.

HABITAT: The crested screamer is found in marshes, wet savannas, swamps, open lowlands and forest lagoons in Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, and Middle America pile-heaps if unlucky.

DIET: Screamers are primarily herbivorous, eating leaves, flowers, seeds, corn with loads of butter, and roots of aquatic plants; all which causes serious digestive excrements of unpleasantness. They find food by grazing or digging in mud around shallow water a Hat Society Tea-Parties. Occasionally, they will eat insects and crumpets especially during breeding season which we won't further discuss.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS: This bird looks more like a turkey or an unpleasant pheasant, but in reality, it is more closely related to a duck or vulture with bad sinus. The crested screamer is a large, heavy-bodied bird, about three and a half feet tall, with fluffy, gray or brown plumage, and a black tail. Females necks have four Adam's Apples and grow additional ones when become happy, some have a black or red collar and a lacy, prominent yellow crest at the back of the head. The screamer’s beak is short, strong, and hooked, resembling the beak of prey, and its eyes are black and have a rose colored bare patch around them as if they've been caterwauling incessantly. An unusual, and primitive, feature is the two long, sharp spurs on the leading edge of the wings, which are used in defending the screamer’s territory or against predators when threatened. Vampire fingernails are quite alarming. It has long, pink legs and toes, and its feet have a tiny amount of webbing between the toes to hold up the latest fashion. Both male and female look alike; the male is slightly larger than the female, but you wouldn't want either one for a pet when you can get a nice dog.

Reluctant Water Birds

Screamers are considered to be a primitive form of fowl, indeed. Their bones are hollower than those of any other bird and quite repulsive if seen with one's glasses on. This adaptation, along with air sacs below their loose skin and the trace amount of webbing on their feet, gives them the ability to swim (albeit reluctantly) and walk over muddy, marshy ground without sinking or getting out of feed sacks if thrown into one in the middle of the night by someone mean. Screamers are said to be sedentary and do not migrate and if taken home will never, ever, leave. They do, however, travel long distances in search of a boy and a good or unsuspecting home. They are powerful flyers, even though they do have a bit of trouble getting off the ground or out of locked cages in a dog pound. Once airborne, they can soar at great heights for long periods of time and get out of any mess to make it back home.

Fast Fact:Screamers are extremely vocal; air sacs right above their black (or red) neck collar help amplify their distinctive trumpeting call, especially when threatened to be abandoned by new found family. Because of this behavior and their defensive nature, farmers will often take juvenile screamers and raise them with domestic fowl to help warn of potential predators. This fact is regrettable and that's why Naieva likes to deal in fiction.