Ten years ago, I had a different type bird wandering through my yard. This peacock was on the loose and traveled several miles and my yard was just one of his stops on his journey. Peafowl can live up to 50 years in captivity. The male peafowl is called peacock and they use their feathers to attract peahens, the female.
Peacock on the Move
The number of my normal summer birds are way low this year but a few years ago I had this unexcited bird in my yard. It was sighted for many miles as it roamed the countryside.
Roaming Peacock
A face almost appears in a close up view of the tail feathers of a peacock. To gain attention of females, the male feathers are covered with small crystal which reflect different wavelengths of light depending on how they’re spaced, resulting in bright fluorescent colors.
Peacock Feathers
It was nice to spot both the Redheaded Woodpecker and the Pileated Woodpecker today since they aren’t not regulars to the bird feeders but what I didn’t expect to see outside was a peacock. It was trying to get into my basement and it probably wished it succeeded as now it is hiding under the pine tree because of the rain shower.
The Indian Peafowl or Blue Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is a large and brightly colored bird of the pheasant family native to South Asia, but introduced and semi-feral in many other parts of the world. The species was first named and described by Linnaeus in 1758.
Technically, only males are peacocks. Females are peahens, and together, they are called peafowl. Peacocks are ground-feeders that eat insects, plants, and small creatures.
Peahens often choose males for the quality of their trains — the quantity, size, and distribution of the colorful eye-spots. Experiments show that offspring of males with more eye-spots are bigger at birth and better at surviving in the wild than offspring of birds with fewer eye-spots.
Indian Peafowl
