Neighborhood's magnificent blue peacock is gone

Our last photo of the peacock we named Lord Byron.

The blue peacock, the one my wife nicknamed "Lord Byron" because of his magnificent plumage, is dead. He was the last of Ms. Bird's two chicks, born in July, 2014.

He had been watched with delight by the entire neighborhood.

We spotted his feathers dragged along the center of NE 18th Street at Victoria Park Road this morning on our walk. His feathers are unmistakable, of course. Obviously he had been hit by a vehicle.

It appears someone had removed as much of the body as possible. That was a merciful thing to do.

We have not spotted Ms. Bird so far this morning. We have no reason to believe she was hurt and we hope she is OK and was not driven off.

Peacocks are wild animals, and the ones in this neighborhood have never really been pets, although some residents have claimed to have tamed them to some degree. There is no way I know to keep them "safe."

Of course they lack knowledge of traffic rules.

Lord Byron, in particular, was becoming a regal male, repeatedly spreading his feathers to boss around the local ducks and pigeons. Dominance was becoming his business, as it is for male peacocks.

He was wary, but never afraid.

We enjoyed his displays but will always remember him best as the gawky chick he was, the apple of his mother's eye.

Big blue bird and his big blue bird bath

Lord Byron at his favorite perch.

The big blue peacock we call Lord Byron has a favorite perch in our backyard: a blue ceramic bird bath.

None of the other peacocks who've graced our lives have bothered with bird baths, not even to drink. But Byron loves to stand in this one, gazing out over the Middle River.

He doesn't bathe; rarely seems to drink. Maybe he just likes to cool off his "toes."

He looks so lordly standing there, and — you know — so blue. Does he sense that it's the right color for his plumage to show to advantage?

More importantly, does the peacock understand that the ceramic bowl is not permanently attached to the base and his weight could cause it to tilt and fall off? We try to keep it full of water to help offset his weight on the edge.

Ms. Bird and her growing chick find one another

Mother and child reunion.

Ms. Bird and Lord Byron found one another soon after her return from treatment at the Wildlife Center.

Both discovered they love kale, a new menu item Bonnie introduced to add calcium to their diet. Advice on the Internet is that females need calcium to produce eggs with shells hard enough to make them easy to push out. We're concerned Ms. Bird had trouble with that.

Of course the peacocks eat what they want when and if they want anything. Often they ignore food we offer. Our neighbors offer a variety of things as well, and we see the birds hunting (for bugs?) constantly.

Their relationship is interesting. Lord Byron still seems to follow his mother around; she seems to prefer a bit of privacy. Perhaps she instinctively will not want him around next time she lays. Sometimes there's a peck or the threat of it to warn him off.

And her concern may be well founded as, in her absence, Byron was often seen standing alongside a clutch of young Muscovy ducks in the neighborhood. It wasn't clear if he was there to intimidate them or merely to be a chick himself.

He's only a year old, still too young to become a father.

Ms. Bird nursed back to health by Wildlife Center

Wildlife Center worker takes ailing
Ms. Bird in for examination.

Ms. Bird got another visit to the South Florida Wildlife Center this month.

The South Florida Wildlife Center is a partner of the Humane Society of the United States. The people there really care. The operation is impressive. An "ambulance" responded when we called Aug. 15 to report that Ms. Bird seemed in distress.

She wasn't eating, neighbors reported, and she had spent the night before on a low perch instead of high in a tree as usual. In the morning she stayed on that perch, appearing to be asleep sometimes.

Neighbors agreed that it was time to call for help. I made the call and a worker came right over and collected her.

The diagnosis, apparently after X-rays at the Center, was that she had a collapsed egg inside her. (We knew she had built a nest but hadn't laid any eggs.)

We read on the Internet that having an egg stuck is a life-threatening condition.

After it was removed and a course of drugs was administered Ms. Bird was released to us to be returned to her home neighborhood. We brought her back in a borrowed cage.

We're glad to have Ms. Bird back and grateful to the South Florida Wildlife Center for helping her back to health.

Back in her old neighborhood Aug. 25, 2015.

A peachick grows up in Fort Lauderdale

Lord Byron briefly holds court atop our wooden table.

He's now regularly called "Lord Byron" by Bonnie and I but I don't think any neighbors know that's our name for the blue peachick. He's a big, beautiful creature now, and independent of his mother (which seems to suit her fine).

Unlike his mother, Lord Byron doesn't seem to attach any particular importance to our yard and is more often seen elsewhere. He likes to hang with the crowd of Muscovy ducks when they gather on Victoria Park Road but later you might see him sitting regally atop a roof.

This morning, however, he stopped by and hopped up on the birdbath in our backyard. He's not thirsty; just looking around. His mother never did this.

But, later, he rested briefly on the wooden table on the deck, just as she used to do (but hasn't lately). I managed to get this one photo, but he didn't stay long and he left no feathers.

Video shows that peacocks are very alert

Notice the "flighty" awareness of the blue peachick as it eats a handful of seeds presented at the back door of our Poinsettia Heights house.

The bird seems to respond to the least noise, including a shout from down the block and the whispered voices of my daughter and her boyfriend as she shot this video.

Even the movement of the white, mother peahen in the background causes the peachick to jump.

Notice, too, the almost soundless "peep" the bird makes itself. We've noticed before how this sound is almost completely directionless; hard to tell where it's coming from, something that no doubt aids peahens in finding their chicks but does little to direct predators to the target.

I've taken to calling this bird Blue Bird, now that there is only one blue peachick left alive to name. My wife, Bonnie, is trying to push for the far grander name "Lord Byron."

Thing is, everyone on the block will have their own name for the bird; Blue Bird at least will eliminate any doubt which bird we mean when we discuss the peacocks with our neighbors!

Drama in the wild kingdom as a big bird visits

Peacocks watch as a big visitor takes to the air between them.
(Photo by Bonnie Gross)

The two peacocks in the neighborhood were interested to see a big white bird on the lawn in front of a house on Northeast 21st Street, and approached to check it out.

The big white bird — a great egret, I presume — wasn't looking for company but it had its eye on prey (a lizard?) in the those bushes and wasn't going to flee until it got it.

The blue peachick eventually started doing its silly raised-feather salute but Ms. Bird stayed calm as she edged closer. Perhaps, with its long neck, she thought it might be another white peahen?

Certainly the peacocks were showing much more interest in this bird than they do in the old-hat Muscovy ducks in the neighborhood.

Ultimately the big bird got its meal and immediately took off. That's when Bonnie clicked the shutter and nailed this great photo.

Ms. Bird took the egret's take off calmly but blue bird went all haywire, running across the road as if to chase the big bird... on foot. Ms. Bird chased her chick with that "there the kid goes again" concern every parent would recognize.

The big bird soared past one more time as if to rub in its superior flying skills and soared off over the rooftops.

A sad, sudden end for one peachick

One of the peachicks; it was never easy to tell them apart.

Ms. Bird's peachicks gained size fast, which we assumed gave them protection from predators. Despite their size, they remained chicks in behavior. While Ms. Bird was constantly on alert, scanning her surroundings, the chicks would become preoccupied with whatever they were doing.

This would then result in sudden panic when any threat appeared, or even if their mother had moved to be temporarily out of sight. The chicks would startle, behaving "like chickens with their heads cut off."

This seems to have caused the death of one of the chicks the late afternoon of Jan. 2, 2015.

I was in the house when I heard persistent and obviously alarmed crowing from Ms. Bird. I got up to investigate, but turned back and grabbed my camera, thinking I might get a shot of this occasional behavior.

The last photo I have of the three birds together.
Peachicks are easily as big as Ms. Bird!

On the front sidewalk I encountered a neighbor, John, walking his own large dog on a leash. As we met, a large brown dog I didn't recognize walked out of the side yard of my house toward John.

"Do you know this beast?" I asked John, ironically, wondering why it would be on the loose. He said he knew the dog from the neighborhood, and called it by name, indicating he would take charge of it.

"THAT bird," he said, nodding to my side yard, "flew all the way up and hit the high tension power line. I think he may have been shocked."

I looked down the side yard and spotted one of the peachicks lying on its side, on the ground. Ms. Bird was above it, on the roof line of the neighboring house, continuing to crow loudly.

At this moment I must have taken a photo of the scene, although I don't remember doing so. I was shocked later to find a blurry photo on the camera. Ms. Bird, being all white, may be invisible in the washed out area above the roof, or perhaps had moved just out of sight. She never stopped crowing loudly.

The photo I don't remember taking. Crumpled bird barely visible.

What I do remember doing is approaching the injured bird and taking it into my arms — it made only one off-center scrape along the ground trying to escape me and then did not resist. It looked at me. It was still alive but I felt no heartbeat.

I asked John to summon Bonnie. He again described the bird flying into the power line that runs along the sidewalk, right by the power pole, and then plummeting straight down. My guess is that the bird was startled by the big dog and flew into the spider web of power lines that meet at the pole.

Perhaps it was shocked, or perhaps the impact with wires and fall proved fatal (I would subsequently find a large feather and lots of blue/white peachick fluff directly under the pole). John told me the fallen bird had gotten up the length of the side yard on its own speed, fleeing the big dog.

The dog may have been just curious and may never have touched the bird for all I know.

The peachick died before we could get it to the Wildlife Care Center. We left the body with them.

A neighbor pointed out that it might have been better to bury the bird at home, with Ms. Bird watching. It might have prevented what we saw the next day: Ms. Bird and the remaining chick seemingly frantically searching.

The deceased chick had been the larger of the two and had been showing signs of being dominant, even pecking at Ms. Bird and its sibling to establish who would eat first.

"Oh, that was her favorite," another neighbor said when told of the death. How much we read into these birds our own emotions! I was just glad that I got to hold the chick at the end and grateful that humans have arms that can enfold other creatures. Perhaps it matters to them. It certainly did to me.