I tagged along on a Master Gardener trip to Weathersfield and found this fellow confined to a cage:
Peacock - stowed view
His companion was a pure white (leucistic, not albino) female:
Leucistic Peahen
Shortly thereafter, he deployed for action. Part of the dance involves rattling all those quills:
Peacock - side view
I had no idea peacocks have wooly white underwear!
Peacock - stern view
The female remained utterly uninterested throughout the entire show; evidently, one can get used to anything if it happens often enough.
Raj, our correspondent from India, surely has these things like we have turkeys: enough to be a nuisance.
#1 by Raj on 15-July-2011 - 23:39
Numbers are dwindling Ed, there used to be many in my maternal grandpa’s place. We were told to keep off them and their strutting around was common. There is some forest area near my farm that has them but I have yet to see any there recently.
Current discussion in another group: Why did the turkey cross the road?
#2 by Ed on 16-July-2011 - 07:24
Just like the peacock: to stop traffic!
Somebody a few miles away had a small flock of peafowl. A male would occasionally get loose and strut across the road, which was a complete showstopper: the bird + stowed tail blocks a whole lane and, at least around here, nobody runs over a deployed peacock.
Turkeys, however, generally become feathered flapjacks.
Either the owners lost interest or they sold the place, so the peafowl are no more. Alas, our winters get too cold for them to go feral around here. Not to mention the foxes…