Tag Archives: peacocks

Peacocks redux

PeacockNearly three years ago, we went and visited some peacocks that were in our community. Now these birds are not just in a zoo or aviary or hothouse, no no no – these birds live in “the wild!” They wander around the neighbourhood injecting a wild splash of color.

Today we decided to see how they were doing and headed back to the neighbourhood. We had learned about them from a newspaper article focusing on how unhappy some of the people were that these large birds were making a mess, being too loud, and generally being disruptive.

PeacocksWhile there, we chatted with a couple of people and they talked about how the article made the community rally around the birds. Now it’s become a family thing – people bring them food, and generally look out for them. I think it’s a wonderful story. The birds are colorful, friendly and VERY big.

PeacocksOne of the homeowners brought out his young son and some bread and proceeded to feed them. The peacocks hopped off the fences, off the porches and came over for the handout. They allowed us to be within a couple inches of them. It was a lot of fun!

Here’s a brief compilation of a couple of movies we took.

Peacocks in the city

PeacockThere was an article in one of our local papers this morning about peacocks, and how they are disturbing a neighbourhood. Some of the locals complained about their noise, and their habit of going to the bathroom on the sidewalk, driveways, and roofs of their homes.

Male PeacockI was totally fascinated. Particularly because the neighbourhood is within walking distance of our house! That’s right! Peacocks wandering around Surrey! I found it very hard to believe, but the paper pointed out that a peacock is basically a pheasant, and there was no reason they couldn’t survive in the wild here in the Lower Mainland.

PeacocksWell, Pam and I just had to go check it out! And holy cow! As we wandered around, there they were, sunning themselves in the front yard of a house. But there are a LOT of these birds! And Male Peacockthey are BIG. Some up to thirty pounds!

The article said there were fifteen, although they said that some people had reported that there might be as many as thirty. Well, I can confirm there are OVER thirty. I counted 28, in two yards, and another five perched on a fence.Showing off

On the fenceIt was really remarkable. They had very little fear of me, allowing me to get within a couple feet of them, before merely moving off at a very slow rate.

Very very cool. Truly a remarkable thing…. it will definitely be part of my strolls in the future! We had Max with us, but we kept him back, because he really wanted to go after them! He loves to chase birds!