Tampa Travel Diary 5: The Peacocks!

In my neck of the woods in Accordion City – just north of High Park, a huge area of green in the west end covering 400 acres and just north of Lake Ontario – the big birds who strut about are Canada geese. I wrote about them about this time last year in an article titled The Local Gaggle.

Down in Anitra’s neck of the woods in Tampa, the birds who walks around as if they own the place are a little different…

…they’re peacocks.

These guys have a sort of routine, typically appearing in the mid-afternoon and disappearing before dark. Some of them sauntered about at ground level…

…while others preferred to perch atop the roofs.

Here’s a female – a peahen – resting on someone’s front lawn.

I managed to get a couple of photos of her before she got a bit antsy about my presence and decided to move away.

The males are easy to spot. They’re avian metrosexuals, dressing more fancily than the female of the species.

If you’ve got it, flaunt it!

We looked about for any stray feathers they left behind, but the peacocks weren’t letting any of them go. They just spent their time surveying the real estate.

It was pretty cool seeing these birds in the wild; I’d never seen them outside of a zoo. I’m looking forward to catching them again on my next visit.