Peacock …they free range at my sister’s place

My Sister has a very nice place at the end of the road with state land on 2 sides. She also likes to have her animals free range. She keeps a feeder full for the ducks, turkeys, chickens, guinea hens, and peacocks. Wild turkey, deer and wild hogs also roam in and out.

There are a couple of males, but this one has the biggest set of tail feathers. He was more than willing to strut his stuff…but dropped his tail feathers as soon as I tried to approach.

They roost in the trees. Sometimes they sit on the outbuildings. This is one of the other males. You can see he doesn’t have his full growth of tail feathers.

They eat a lot of insects, small frogs etc, spiders, even mice. So it’s good to have them around. They do like to eat flower parts also. Not too good for the garden.

They make great watch dogs. Their very loud cry sounds like someone yelling “heeeeeelp”, heeeeeelp. 

When he took the time to preen himself, I was able to snap several photos.

The colors he sports on his body are beautiful. There is such  a variety of feathers. Here’s a close up of his head. Don’t you just love the little feather top knot?

This Peahen didn’t want me to get too close to here 3 little ones, and I didn’t press the issue.

They are big birds. About the size of a turkey. I wish my camera could pick up the iridescent color of the feathers when the sun shines on them. They are absolutely dazzling.

I took those pictures last week. I have been hearing a Peacock call in the morning and was hoping that one day it would follow the wild turkeys in.

Last evening a pair strolled up the drive and all around our yard. I think they roosted nearby because I heard their call just before daylight when all the birds are starting to say hello. I made my morning rounds with a handful of corn tossed in the areas each of the rabbits like to feed in, and now I have to feed the squirrels a bit, since they can no longer raid the bird feeder. I love that new “squirrel proof” feeder.  I think it might be starling proof too. Had a big black bird here a few days ago and he couldn’t figure out how to get onto it. But I’ll need to see how a flock does when they arrive..so that’s a story for another day.

I sat down to enjoy my morning coffee and Peacocks showed up. I took this through the screen on the back porch. I didn’t want to discourage them. I’ll get better pictures if they continue to come back. They found the deck interesting and both came up and walked around on it.

This is the Peahen in the front yard. They didn’t seem interested in the corn I put out for the squirrels, and were down by the turkey feeder in the back yard ,but didn’t stop to eat. They may be looking for a place to nest. I hope they like the woods around us.