Peahen on a Rio rooftop, with her pretty green neck glinting in the sun. She’s above it all.
The females of the Indian peafowl (peahens) are dressed in simple brown and white with green at the neck. The males (peacocks) are a different story. See my photos from last week HERE.
The peahen was sitting calmly on a roof while down below a group of peacocks (known as a pride, or ostentation) was having a sort of battle on either side of this barrier.
They were running around, squawking, and popping their heads up over the fence to see the other side. Occasionally one would jump over, or go around, and join the other team. I couldn’t make sense of it.
Maybe all the fuss was because mating season is beginning. First make war, then make love.
Here’s a very different looking bird… a weird color variation?
There are some “white” peacocks in Rio – not totally white but with more white on their bodies than the others.
The males are growing out their lustrous long feathers for display as breeding season begins. Their piercing calls echo through that eastern part of Rio where peafowl wandered off Hollywood star Frances Langford’s jungly estate.
The estate was denuded of all vegetation and sat as golden brown dirt for a few years before a tract of new houses was built, but by then the peafowl had made their homes nearby among smaller, older houses with their older plantings of trees and shrubs.
Peacocks molt those striking, long feathers annually (in summer) and regrow new ones as mating season approaches.
They are not actually tail feathers but elongated upper tail “covert” feathers, growing out of their backs.
I spy with my little eye… something that is pretty and wants to be admired and photographed.
I was out for a stroller walk with my six-month-old grandson who lives with his parents in a peacock-rich neighborhood yesterday. He had drowsed off for his first nap of the day (he loves a nice fresh-air outdoor nap) while I deployed my Canon SX60 superzoom point-and-shoot camera that had been riding along in the bottom of the stroller.
But these peacocks are big and tame and not much zooming is necessary.
Ah, the color of those iridescent blue feathers! The feathers on his back remind me that peafowl are related to another big bird, the wild turkey.
The Phasianidae are a family of heavy, ground-living birds, which includes pheasants, partridges, junglefowl, chickens, turkeys, Old World quail, and peafowl.
They do remind me of flashy, tropical chickens too. Something about the head and curve of the beak and size of the eye.
The residents of Rio are generally fond of the birds. I wonder if these people painted their house on purpose to match the peacocks.
They leave big fat poops on driveways and walkways, they scream morning, noon and night for half the year (you mostly get used to it), but you cannot deny they are gloriously ornamental, beauty to behold.
Today I finally spotted some of the peacocks of Rio, Florida. I have read and heard about them since I moved here.
We were driving on Dixie when I glanced down the road with the awesome name and there they were. U-turn and quick diversion down the dead end street.
(Checking a map it appears we were actually in Jensen Beach here, at the edge of Rio. And in my 5-mile radius, incidentally.)
Absolutely no fear of the car or the woman hanging out the window with her camera. Curiosity, but no aggression… now that breeding season is over.
Peacock feathers!
Indian Peafowl are native to India but have been widely introduced to other parts of the world. The birds in Rio are descended from a flock kept by movie star turned philanthropist Frances Langford.
Amy's Bird Blog 