Peacock coloring pages, and where the blue actually comes from

The round markings that stud the long feathers are the reason people stop and stare. Each one is called an ocellus, which just means little eye, and a grown peacock can carry well over a hundred of them. On a page they are pure invitation: rings inside rings, the same kind of repeating pattern that turns up in the middle of a sunflower, waiting for whatever colors a child wants to try. Match them all, or make every single one different. Both look right, because on the living bird no two catch the light quite the same way.

Raised, the long feathers form a shimmering half circle taller than the bird itself. This is the train, and despite what nearly everyone says, it is not the tail. A peacock's actual tail is short and brown and sits underneath, doing the unglamorous job of propping the whole display upright. Color the fan as one shade flowing into the next, or give every feather its own lane. There is no wrong way to fill a hundred eyes.

The bird most pages show is the Indian peacock, the deep blue one everybody pictures. It is not the only kind.

The white one is the interesting case for coloring. It is not albino. It has simply been bred to lose its color, so a photo of a white peacock already looks a little like a coloring page: all line and shape, almost no color to copy. That makes it the perfect page for a child who would rather invent every shade from nothing.

Once your child has a favorite, it is worth seeing what else carries the same shimmer. Other birds built on structural color, or just more pages in the same showy spirit.

Ready when you are. Here is the full set of peacock pages, from a single feather to the whole fan thrown wide. Print a handful, hand over the brightest crayons in the box, and let the color be entirely their idea.