Once upon a time (actually July 2006) Paul and I heard a loud, shrieking noise in the woods as we worked in our yard. We could not figure out what was making that awful sound until a few days later, Paul saw a peacock strutting down the road.
He visited around the neighborhood and decided to live in Jane's yard. He would be around her when she worked outside, look at himself in all of her windows (vanity). Jane felt like this bird was watching over her like her deceased husband would, so she named him Sir Robert after her husband Robert.
Jane heads south for the winter and she was worried about leaving Sir Robert. She asked us to feed him and take care of him for the winter, so we obliged. Here he is on our deck.
At night he would roost on our railing so that he was safe from predators.
He liked the view during the day too.
What we didn't like were the huge bird droppings on our deck and the entry to our front door (where Sir Robert hung out to get away from the wind and rain.) People wondered why we had newspaper covering our porch.
The benefits of having Sir Robert around was seeing him spread his beautiful fan feathers out.
He would slowly loose them starting about mid July until he had none by November and then they would slowly grow back inch by inch and he would have a new fan of fine feathers by March. Then he would strute his stuff and be very noisy. (It was mating season)
He was very camera shy and would shut down his feather everytime we tried to take a picture of him with them open.
When he shed his feathers I would find them all over the deck and yard. It was like a treasure hunt everyday, walking around my yard picking them up.
Lucky camera shot of his feathers fully opened.
Sir Robert liked to eat all my brocolli and small pea plants in my garden. It was okay because he kept me company when I worked in the yard. He and the cat even became buddies and would sit on the deck together just 2 feet apart. During nice weather he would go visit all the neighbors that didn't have dogs and they got to treasure hunt for his feathers too.
Sir Robert lived in our yard for two years and then in the month of July 2008 he was gone one morning and we haven't seen him since. We like to think he found a new home, but unfortunately the coyote's were looking just a little too fat that year. Goodbye Sir Robert. I sure miss you! Thanks for leaving your beautiful feathers for us to enjoy and remember you by.
