Peacock experience from my high school years

[Celticdragonfly]

So every time I see posts about peafowl go by, I think I ought to share this.

During my freshman and sophomore years in high school, let's see that would have been fall 1983 to summer 1985, we lived in Morristown, NJ, in a nice suburb with hills and a big park and the street name of Cornhill Dr.

One day I was in the car with one of my parents, driving out of the subdivision, and something caught our eye from the sidewalk. And we both were doing doubletakes. It was a full adult male peacock, tail down and behind him, strutting along like he owned the neighborhood.

I'd never seen a peacock anywhere but at a zoo - and there wasn't a zoo nearby. We were baffled. It was one of the most surreal things that happened while we were living there.

Nowadays, seeing the posts of peafowl keepers go by - I have to assume that someone in that general area was keeping peafowl - couldn't have been too near our house, I'd have remembered the call they make - and somebody's bird got loose and went off for an adventure on his own.

It makes me wish I had some way to find them and talk to them and see if they found him and got him back!

 

[MiaS]

Here's another story for you. I have a friend who lives on a farm nearby where she and her husband raised sheep. His parents had lived and farmed there for decades before that and his mother raised peacocks among their livestock.

Sadly, and after a long battle, her husband succumbed to cancer several years ago in the fall. The next spring one majestic peacock showed up and stayed for the summer. My friend was so consoled by his presence and is convinced that it was a sign from Heaven that all was well. It's a great story as we live in Alberta, not exactly a primo location for a stray peacock.