Forget about the renegade rooster in Billy Cox's April 11 column, we are being terrorized by a beautiful, but relentless, full grown, magnificent male peacock.
We live in the Palm Bay-Melbourne area west of Interstate 95, and have a dozen or so peacocks and their families roaming our neighborhood year-round.
My wife and I love animals. We have two dogs and two cats, plus we feed a plethora of wildlife.
Not such a good idea, we've found out, because peacocks are the hungriest of them all.
During the mating season, the male of the species screams day and night, bothering everyone in the neighborhood.
Well, it has gotten way out of hand.
This pompous dominant male peacock roams our property preening at his own reflection in home windows, and attacking our vehicles - which happen to be dark cars.
He actually flails himself at them, leaving scratches and permanent damage.
He's really attacking himself. He actually bloodies himself, and it's rather pathetic.
But to keep our property safe, we cover our cars.
Friends who come to visit us constantly go outside to check their cars.
Some avoid us completely.
We put chairs in front of our house windows.
As a test, we put a mirror outside as a "deflection" for the male peacock.
He totally destroyed it within one hour. He pecked at it and made a bazooka-sized hole.
As of this writing, this bird has managed to confine us within our own home.
Any suggestions for survival would be most welcome. Killing him doesn't count.
If we could catch that peacock, I guess it would be a real coup, but he's way too smart for that.
But even if we could catch him, that would only mean turning him over to Animal Control, to do what with him? Euthanasia comes to mind. This is not our goal.
The following has to do with roosters, but it does apply to peacocks, too:
"I love to watch the rooster crow. He's like so many men I know, who brag and bluster, rant and shout, and beat their manly breasts without the first damn thing to crow about." (From Bartlett's The Rooster.)
Brandli is a resident of Melbourne.
After much deliberation, we thought about how we would get rid of the peacock that my wife had named “Mr. Big”. One day, our swimming pool maintenance man, “Will” Powers was here and said he could catch the peacock. In fact, he caught “Mr. Big” with no problem.
I couldn’t quite believe it. He did it so fast and easy.
I couldn’t quite believe it. He did it so fast and easy.
I said,” Look “Will”, if I give you some “dough “, will you wrap him in this special aerated laundry bag and take him in the cab of your truck to Sebastian Inlet”.
Sebastian Inlet area has a lot of peacocks and is located Southeast of our home about twenty five miles, over three North to South major highways and the wide “Indian River”.
I told ”Will“ to gently and safely release “Mr. Big“ into this peacock area.
He agreed and proceeded with this unique task.
He carefully placed “Mr. Big” into the large laundry bag, tucked him onto the truck seat, drove to Sebastian Inlet, and released him.
He called us and said it had been done.
And, we thought that was the end of it. Peacocks can fly only short distances, a couple hundred yards at a clip.
However, a few days later, (how he did it,
I don’t know), there was “Mr. Big” on the roof of the pump house, proud as “you know what”.
People asked us how we knew it was the same peacock. Well, “Mr. Big” had a little “birthmark”, a feather imperfection on the side of his head below his eye. Sure enough, this one had it!
He is still here performing his stuff-roaming, running, squawking, showing off, and strutting around our property and neighborhood executing his majestic magic.
