We were sitting at the bottom of our driveway. My wife got up to fetch something from the house and froze, facing the road with the most amazed expression on her face. I happened to have my camera in my lap and stood up, too. There at the top of the driveway by the garbage can was a great big freaking peacock!
I walked slowly towards him with my camera, but he edged away and headed down the road, where I took the shot you see above. Choosing suicide over fame, however, he soon veered left into the pińon, juniper, and cactus, never to be seen again. If he lasted until sunset, I’d be real surprised. Without a mothership to beam him up, a roving pack of yappy dogs—not to mention coyotes, bobcats, racoons, foxes, and mountain lions—will have his ass in damn short order.
UPDATE: So much for me as a peacock expert. It’s almost dark know. I just jumped up because I saw something huge fly past the window. You know what it was. When I walked up to the glass, it took off from a spot about fifty feet away and flew quite well into the upper branches of a giant elm. At this moment, the bird is roosting fifty feet above the ground in the back yard of the house next door.
John Hamilton Farr lives at 7,000 feet in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, U.S.A. As New York Times best-selling author James C. Moore tells it, John is “a man attuned to the world who sees it differently than you and I and writes about it with a language and a vision of life that is impossible to ignore.” This JHFARR.COM site is the master writing archive. To email John, please see CONTACT INFO on .png)
Many years ago, when we lived outside Buderim on the Sunshine Coast, on several acres of land (mostly bushland) a peacock arrived one day. I don’t think it had ever met a peahen because it flaunted its tail at anything that moved. When it did this near the cat, she jumped in the air with astonishment. Later it tried the tail-flaunting thing on a pigeon, which prompt fell off a branch in fright. It stayed for 6 months, then vanished just as mysteriously as it had arrived.
Hi Carmel! Well, I’m glad to know it’s happened before. This one isn’t flaunting, and I don’t see it now (the next morning). Very, very weird, however.
Was just going to say that indeed they do fly, peacocks that is.
And if one ever pitches up, ostriches don’t fly.
Which is probably just as well…..
When I lived on Upper Ranchitos a few years ago, one of our neighbors had several Peacocks. I heard their cries that sound like, “helpp, helpp, helpp” every morning as I watered the garden. I wonder who this dude escaped from. Listen to KTAO Lost and Hound on the radio, maybe somebody is looking for him.
WOW! The peacock is a symbol of spirituality and awakening.
Sign me up! I can use a mess o’ that!
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