Epilog of Pete the Peacock - United Exterminating Company

Pete has finally met his match. Our Peacock Lady has come to take him away. How did we finally catch him? Well, we fed him, every day, inside our garage, with the door half-way down. Then, after a few days, when he was feeding, we quickly blocked the exit with a blanket while he was feeding, closed the garage door and awaited the arrival of the Peacock Lady.

She arrives, goes in the garage, walks right over to Pete, (he knew the jig was up) scoops Pete up, literally stuffs him into an old orange crate, head sticking out, looking kind of forlorn, throws him into the back of her 1968 Ford pickup and drives off into the sunset. (Did you expect, maybe, a flashy uniform and a $45,000 Animal Ambulance?)

The Peacock Lady has a farm, way out in the boonies, with about 25 other peacocks. Pete won't have a good time. Joining 25 other peacocks means he comes in at the bottom of the pecking order, and all the male peacocks will have to sort out who goes where. Peacocks are territorial birds, so the "best" peacock gets first choice - for females, food, and the topmost part of the tree or structure at night - in nature, peacocks roost in the trees.

UPDATE - MARCH, 2001
All of the above happened in the fall of 2000, and we called to see how Pete was doing now, in the spring of 2001. The report was that Pete, as one of the younger birds, and a stranger to the territory, did indeed have a difficult time. Anne, (the real name of our Peacock Lady) says that everything seems to be alright now, Pete is somewhere at the middle of the current pack of 8 juveniles. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll get any more updates, Anne says it's hard to keep track of individual birds, they have complete freedom to leave, if they want.

We miss Pete - sort of. We loved seeing him stand up to any other animal on the property, dogs, cats, whatever, he was KING. We'll miss the people that stopped by to see how Pete was doing. We won't miss the fact that he ate absolutely anything - including all the flowers, berries and buds of any plant within reach. The doctor's offices, next to us, and the lady across the street, both had small gardens that Pete regularly raided. Pete learned that when the lady from across the street left in her car, he would have free access to her garden, in spite of her large Labrador. She said the only thing Pete wouldn't eat was her basil.