The triplets are so alike, always doting on each other and poking into everyone else's business.
"They're boys," says Ashley O'Connell, smiling. "They're just my sweet babies."
And on Siblings Day (yes, there is such a thing and it's Saturday), O'Connell is especially proud that all who see her boys will witness their devotion to each other.
"They are so adorable," O'Connell coos.
They are birds.
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Blue-crowned laughingthrush birds, to be specific, a critically endangered species whose native home is in southeastern China. There are only between 50 and 249 adults left in the wild, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species. There are fewer than 100 in the North American Zoo population.
"They are, by nature, social," O'Connell says, though she didn't realize just how social until these three came to the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. And unlike her boys at home – who at 5 and 8 and only sometimes share time and toys – these three are all about the benefits of brotherhood. So much so that O'Connell, a senior keeper with the zoo's aviculture team, says, "I don't think I've ever seen them fight or get into squabbles."
She even calls them "lovely dovey."
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Which is funny, given their names.
Han Solo, Vader and Luke, named at their birthplace at Disney's Animal Kingdom, were from the same nest and hatched at the same time on June 24, 2018. They traveled north together to live here and have remained a trio since their arrival on April 3, 2019.
It's been two years, O'Connell says, marveling at how time flies. Two years of sibling adventure, sibling loyalty, sibling nurturing.
Together, the sibs cache their food, hiding worms and crickets (which eventually wiggle or crawl away) and seeds and food chunks in the mulch of the Australasia exhibit in Wings of the World. Sometimes, one sneaky brother will pull out another's stash and hide it somewhere else. Or, like brothers everywhere, decide he needs to be on his own for a bit.
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OK, so maybe the lovely dovey is a bit of a stretch.
Still, the boys often fly together, and together they have a habit of greeting incoming roommates to their 10-species, 23-bird habitat, flying up close and bobbing around the newcomers, whistling to them.
"They're like the nosy neighbor sometimes," O'Connell says.
How nosy?
Whenever a nesting pigeon flies off to get a bite to eat, the laughingthrushes zip to her nest, hop around in it and poke at her unfertilized eggs with their beaks. "They're a little intrusive," O'Connell admits.
Boys will be boys.
But their species is endearing, too. These small Asian songbirds are particularly known for caring for newly hatched siblings. (Maybe that's what the egg-poking is about, O'Connell says.)
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There was that one time when the keepers placed an ostrich egg in the habitat to see what the laughingthrush brothers would do. As O'Connell anticipated, the boys investigated the egg, sat on top of it and poked at and around it, whistling while they worked.
It is not all merrymaking, however.
They are persnickety about their appearance and depend on each other for their personal upkeep.
When one brother puffs up his plumage, another hops over and pokes his beak into his brother's feathers and preens away, mostly cleaning and fluffing the tiny feathers around his neck. The birds seem to take turns so that all three can get the job done for one another. The grooming is important, O'Connell says, to keep them warm and help them fly.
The boys are not paired with female laughingthrushes for breeding yet, and they're still young, which might explain some of their sibling devotion, their keeper says. They're in for a new kind of family unit soon: This summer, the zoo may become home to a fourth male blue-crowned laughingthrush.
"I'm really curious about the stepbrother coming in," she says. "Will that change their dynamic or will he become part of the squad?"
O'Connell, once a gorilla keeper and then a keeper of hooved animals at the zoo, says she never thought she'd be so enamored with birds – let alone these little ones. (The penguins get all the attention, she says.)
But the three blue-crowned laughingthrushes are hers, she says, beaming the way any mother would.
She can mimic their whistle, and when she does, they whistle back.
They fly to greet her. They watch her closely and appear to listen to her as she talks to them.
They might swing by and listen to you, too, if you whistle their way when you visit, O'Connell says. After all, that's their social nature.
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But even if they don't, you should have no trouble spotting them, she says.
Look for the happy band of brothers.
Look for, O'Connell says, the "brotherly love."
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