jmgoyder

On Christmas Eve evening I went out as usual to put the gang away and, once that was done, I went to sit down at my picnic table close to their yards to wait for the peacocks to ascend into the trees.

But my heart galloped to an abrupt halt when I saw, just beside the picnic table, a pile of feathers – King peacock’s tail feathers – about 20 or so. A feeling of grief overwhelmed me because I assumed that the fox had killed him, so I sat down and sobbed inconsolably until, a few moments later, Son bounded out of the house to see where I was. My sobs were rather loud, so he found me quite easily and proceeded to laugh hysterically when I gasped, “King is dead.”

“Mum, you idiot,” Son said, sitting next to me and putting his arm around my heaving shoulders. “He’s fine – see – he’s right there!” He pointed and, through my tear-engorged eyes I saw King strutting across the lawn towards me, looking a little less regal than usual.

I stopped crying with sorrow and started crying with relief. “King!” I called and he came closer.

“He must be molting, Mum. I just collected all his feathers this afternoon and put them in a pile for you,” Son said gently, still chuckling.

I dried my eyes on my shirt. “Would you mind not calling me an idiot?” I said.

“I’ll consider it,” he said.

Peacocks make a variety of very loud noises and I mean VERY LOUD. Some say that these are amongst the most annoying noises in the world. I was warned about this by the people who sold us our first peacocks, but it was several weeks before any of them made the slightest sound so the first time I heard it, I got a terrible fright because it sounded like a woman screaming – no, not screaming, SHRIEKING. Okay, so that’s one sound. Another one is this trumpeting sound – quite haunting and, to my ears, pleasant, although when they all do it together I am very glad we don’t have close neighbours because it sounds a bit like an orchestra tuning up – ie. a bit disharmonious!

Anyway, these noises fill the air for much of the day, on and off, but the three of us are so used to it now that we don’t even notice. So it’s fantastic fun to see the expression of alarm on visitors’ faces when the peacocks do the shrieking thing. “What the hell was that?” they exclaim.

It’s probably the squawking noise (see/hear youtube below) that most irritates people because it’s such an angry sound, but we don’t hear that too often thank goodness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_DJNG-lxbk

My favourite of their sounds is this soft click-clicking that issues from their throats when I feed them bread or other treats. It’s almost if they are saying ‘thank you’.

Husband will be elated to come back to this trumpeting of angels (I think!)