Leave them alone and they’ll come home, wagging their beautiful tails behind them
Not Little Bo Peep’s sheep, but a peacock named Raul:
Freedom and fame proved fleeting for a fugitive Bronx Zoo peacock.
The runaway bird, dubbed “Raul” by local residents, wrapped up its life on the lam Thursday by flying back home after drawing a morning crowd of fans, reporters and zoo officials while perched in a tree at Vyse Ave. and E. 180th St.
The fowl’s two-day taste of feathery freedom ended quietly when Raul returned to zoo grounds at 11:19 a.m., one day after its escape. Police and zoo officials were pondering their next step in the strange standoff when Raul returned to his urban habitat.
“We kept an eye on the bird (Thursday) morning as he started to move around at dawn and fully expected him to return to the zoo as he did,” said a statement from the Bronx Zoo. “We had confidence in our knowledge of bird behavior to predict how he would behave if given the chance to do so without interference.”
Nice photos at the link.
The peacocks once resident at NYC’s beautiful and majestic Cathedral of St John the Divine (not far from Columbia U) have apparently retired,leaving the city for a quieter abode. Perhaps they were unhappy with the last two mayors, each as bad as the other.
I once lived in a 2 block un-incorporated section of Bay Area suburb. Somehow, right in the middle of several housing developments.
On our block, a peacock and a three-legged dog wandered frequently.
Also, several neighbors had horses. Kinda strange, now that I think about it.
Ten minute walk to bowling alley and two shopping centers. Five minute drive to freeway.
Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo used to (still does?) have peacocks roaming the grounds freely and I often wondered how the zoo kept them from simply walking or flying off the grounds. I guess it’s peacock behavior to not roam?
We have had a Peacock wandering around our rural subdivision in the past. Not sure where it came from, but have not seen it since last yr.
They ate Peacocks in the Middle Ages. Probable because their cry is obnoxious.
For a long time, there was a flock of wild peacocks living in western Columbus, Ohio. There were a dozen or more of them, and they aggressively defended their territory against all comers, including the human residents, and shat all over everything, especially cars. Eventually, maybe a decade ago, the Columbus Zoo rounded them up. How a tropical or subtropical bird survived midOhio winters is a mystery.
Peacocks make better country watchdogs than geese do, but they are meaner, especially to the dogs and cats – and stupider, too.
Here’s some video shots of Raul during his brief taste of life outside the zoo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tfv13F4dgY&ab_channel=FOX5NewYork
I thought it was interesting that the locals named the bird Raul because he’s Puerto Rican– no explanation of that.
Many years ago, the DC zoo had some golden lion tamarins that were NOT in cages. They were bred in captivity with the plan to eventually release them into the wild.
The area in the zoo that they stayed in was a wooded triangle; the one side of the zoo was Rock Creek Park with a large enough stream that they wouldn’t/couldn’t cross it, on the another side is where many of the larger animals in enclosures were (e.g., elephants, giraffes, hippos, etc.), and the last side faced Connecticut Avenue with busy traffic that kept them away. Of course the most important reason they didn’t wander off is that all the food they needed was supplied in the wooded triangle area so there was really no need to wander elsewhere.
It was really kind of cool to see them in a more natural habitat and knowing they were soon to be released back into the wild. Sadly, they are still an endanger species in their native coastal region of Brazil.
The house in Pasadena, California that my maternal grandparents lived in from the 1920s until the mid 70’s had a huge oak tree out in front. The tree was the chosen roost of a stray peacock who apparently went on the lam from one of the big estates – it liked the tree and the modest neighborhood, I guess. I remember seeing the peacock once, when I was a small child.
Peacocks are indeed beautiful but as others have said, terrible birds. The others did miss one of their qualities – they are loud and annoyingly harsh.
Had some lived one farm away.
We had at last one wild peacock in the neighborhood when I lived in California. It wandered around the green belts.
Also quite a few escaped canaries.
One of the neighbors had chickens and peacocks. The peacock decided it didn’t like being put in the safe Enclosure one night and made a bid for freedom. With freedom comes danger- foxes, raccoons, other night creatures. We found a few feathers and not much else.
Not a peacock, but the area NextDoor app had a picture of a Golden Pheasant on the loose near here. This escaped from someone’s yard; there are no indigenous populations. Gorgeous bird.
I once tried to talk my husband into a peacock – which run wild around here – I thought it would look great strutting about our 1/2 acre lawn.
And after all, we have to put up with our neighbor’s ducks that use our pool – so why not our very own peacock? He felt we could not do that to our neighbors (not the duck owning ones) their cry just too obnoxious.
I do know a woman – with a 5 acre property, so the neighbors are not as much of an issue – who imported white peacocks for her yard from Thailand.
White peacocks seem a bit pointless at first but are really beautiful to look at.
Ah, Rufus, you remember the peacocks! And probably the fountain. And the old safari lodge that was on the extreme eastern edge of the zoo, a little north from the children’s part.
When I was at the Museum of Appalachia in Tenn., I was shocked to run across a considerable number of free-roaming peacocks and peahens. I was watching one from fairly close range when I was nearly brained by a squirrel falling out of a tree. Not that the peacock had anything to do with that, of course. But the unusual nature of the association means that I hope it’ll still stick in my memory in case my brain ever softens. The peacock calls were eerie.