Morpheus and the Nightly Aria

Morpheus quickly got nicknamed “my problem chick.”

Imprinting was no joke.

At a week old, we moved the little ones out to the porch brooder. During the day, I could cover the brooder window, and Morph would forget about me for longer stretches.

Out of sight, out of mind.

Until he figured out he could push the curtain aside and check.

After that, every time I opened the porch door — feeding, checking, just passing through — it was over. Full alarm. The Morpheus Whistle.

If you’ve never heard a distressed peachick calling for its person, imagine a smoke detector that developed feelings of abandonment.

I was the British nanny of chick-rearing. Loving. Structured. Firm boundaries. I told myself this was working. I told myself the separation was good for both of us.

It was going great.

But every single night at 8pm, as the sun set, the whistle began. Not “Mama.” But “MAMA! MAMA!!” On repeat.

Thirty minutes. Sometimes longer. Nightly. Reliably. Like a tiny feathered air raid siren who had opinions about bedtime.

I tried everything. Lights on late, then quickly dimming. Slowly dimming. Leaving them on. Turning them off.

He hated all of it equally.

Not that we knew Morpheus was a “he” or a “she” yet. But when you name a chick Morpheus, you commit to the pronoun for a while.

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The Rest of the Flock Was Not Amused

As much as Morpheus had imprinted on me, I had imprinted right back.

There were days I thought it was harder on me than it was on him. Hearing him call and not going to him. Sitting inside, staring at the wall, reminding myself that boundaries were the right call.

Probably.

Meanwhile, the other three chicks were trying to process this nightly chaos.

Han and Leia — the two older ones — kept exchanging looks like they were trying to figure out why this sound should concern them. They’d startle, settle, startle again. Eventually they just tried to ignore it.

And Neo.

Neo, Morph’s actual sibling, had already developed a permanent expression I can only describe as:

How am I related to this guy.

I couldn’t blame any of them. Most nights, all three just tucked in and pretended the whistle wasn’t happening.

Same, honestly.

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The Night James Made a Comment

One evening, James slipped in a casual:

“So… how long is this going to go on for…”

Fair question. One I had been actively avoiding asking myself.

I decided it was time to get drastic.

Music. I’d read somewhere that someone had used it to calm stressed chicks. I grabbed a speaker, pulled up my phone, and started auditioning genres for the world’s most demanding audience of one.

Country. Tim McGraw. We live in Texas. I was sure this was it.
Nothing.

Willie Nelson. We are literally a few miles from his ranch.
Nothing.

Jim Brickman. Piano. Nothing on earth can resist Jim Brickman.
Morpheus could resist Jim Brickman.

John Denver. Maybe he needed old-school. It would drive James nuts, but anything was better than the whistle.
Nada.

Classical instrumentals.
But — wait. Longer pauses between whistles.

He’d slowed down with classical. What if I added voices.

Noted.

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The Last Option I Could Think Of

I went nuclear.

The Three Tenors. Pavarotti. Plácido Domingo. José Carreras.

Full opera.

My thinking was that if nothing else, maybe Luciano Pavarotti could drown out a peachick.

He stopped.

Not immediately. But five to ten minutes instead of the thirty we’d all been suffering through.

The Three Tenors had done what Tim McGraw, Willie Nelson, Jim Brickman, John Denver, and the entire classical canon could not.

Over the next few days, I narrowed it down further.

Morph didn’t just like opera. He had preferences.

Andrea Bocelli’s Sacred Arias album. And not even the whole album — specific tracks.

So every night at dusk, anyone within earshot — neighbors, boats passing by on the lake — got the nightly show.

Andrea Bocelli at full volume, singing “Ave Maria” and “Panis Angelicus.”

Morpheus at fuller volume, whistling over him like a tiny, tone-deaf diva who had generously allowed Bocelli to open for her.

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The Part Where This Became My Life

There is no scientific explanation for why opera works on a peachick.

I read that it worked for birds. I stopped questioning why. You just accept it and hope no one asks follow-up questions.

Every night for three months, I queued up Sacred Arias at sunset like it was a religious obligation. The whistle dropped from thirty minutes to ten. Sometimes five.

He never skipped it.

Neither did I.

Because if I forgot, he reminded me.

It became known as “The Morpheus Hour.”

I had not trained a chick to sleep.

I had trained myself to perform a nightly concert for a bird.

So much for boundaries.

If you need me, I’ll be trying to figure out how to file a complaint with Spotify after three months of my algorithm being permanently hijacked by a peachick.