We don’t know where he came from, nor where he went when he left. But we had the most unusual and unexpected visitor for three days recently. Jewel discovered him quite by accident as she sat in our sunroom and suddenly found him looking back at her from behind the flowers on the patio out front late in the afternoon of the day he arrived (top). Incidentally, all these photos were taken by Jewel who carefully documented the bird’s visit.
He explored our entire property including our garage and parking area, (photo 2) and settled in under an Autumn Olive tree in our back yard where he was pretty well concealed. We don’t believe he spent the night there, but he was back early the next morning and spent the entire day just hanging around our house. He seemed to particularly enjoy looking at his own reflection in our front sunroom picture windows (photo 3) but eventually walked across our deck (photo 4) and headed back over to the Autumn Olive.
Later, he spent considerable time feasting under our bird feeders gorging himself on dropped birdseed and suet pieces. (Photo 5) Our front patio, however, provided just the right stage for him to strut across (photo 6) and pose upon. He spent most of the afternoon of the second day on our patio stage, finally just settling in and lying down to rest and relax (photo 7).
We contacted all our surrounding neighbors, none of whom had any idea where he might have come from or to whom he might have belonged. The mystery only deepened. Early the next morning we spotted him strolling across our fields between our house and the road into town apparently heading directly into possible traffic danger. We never saw him again but did begin hearing reports that he was seen wandering about in other locations within about a mile of our home.
A couple of days later our son also sent us a photo he took of him strolling down the sidewalk two doors from where our son lives in the next town about five miles from our farm. Several days later there was a local news article with a photo of the bird with his owner, reporting that he had finally been found and returned to his home.
We recently discovered that our Peacock has his own Facebook page entitled, “Petey the Perkasie Peacock” along with a great many photos of him wandering far and wide for about two weeks, with photos from as far as 15 miles from our farm. All the photos displayed on that page were taken some time after his appearance at our home.
Peacocks are not uncommon in Florida and can often be found wandering about in the wild. I have seen family groups of as many as six, one Peacock and five Peahens, foraging along Indian River Drive in Fort Pierce, and of course, there is a large group of Peacocks on Orange Avenue (I have heard estimates as high as 100 birds) about two blocks west of Route 1 in Fort Pierce. While the Orange Avenue Peacocks all seem to be well fed and cared for, they do wander about “free as birds,” and I suspect many do from time to time wander off and perhaps become truly wild. But in Pennsylvania neither Jewel nor I have ever seen a Peacock anywhere but in zoos or on large estates and public places where they are closely monitored and certainly not likely to wander off into the wild.
Our friendly three-day Peacock never did fan out his tail and give us that fantastic display for which they are famous. We hoped that he might when he discovered his reflection in our windows, but I guess without a female to impress he never really felt the need to flair.
Birding is a sport/hobby that proves time and again that one should always expect the unexpected. Rare birds frequently appear in the most unlikely and unexpected places often far from their native habitats and ranges. Several days after the Peacock left a bear came and destroyed our entire bird feeding station. Some visitors are very welcome and a delight to see and have around. Others only do damage and are dreaded. Not on a Russian invasion of Ukraine scale, but certainly on a negative impact scale. Beauty or the beast? I’ll take beauty every time.
