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We have a peacock sitting on the roof's of surrounding houses in the middle of a city, does anyone have any idea who I should try and contact. thought RSPB might be worth a call but they don't rescue animals.
By Jolene
Date 09.05.08 12:53 UTC
Tell me about it, at one time, we had 4 peacocks parading around the village, making that 'orrible noise 'til gone midnight, then starting up again before 4 a.m.
Nobody was interested in coming to "rescue" them 4 years ago and now, since 3 have been run over, we are left with just one.
Still, all of that is of no help to you :-D

RSPCA should help just make sure you have a camera crew to hand.
By sam
Date 09.05.08 17:31 UTC

air rifles are quite effective....but failing that a call to rspca may help find the true owner.

They are such beautiful birds to :)
air rifles are quite effective....but failing that a call to rspca may help find the true owner. And they are tasty, somewhere between Chicken and Turkey, but more like Turkey if you know what I mean ;)
By gwen
Date 10.05.08 09:47 UTC

We had a whole bunch arrived where I used to live, it was surreal, one Sunday morning about 7 Peacocks sitting on roof tops and skiming over the telephone wires! A bunch more of them settled onto the fence of an allotment which backed on to our car park, and then started parading around the place! Found one of them peering into the dog room door driving poor Lewis demented! Lots of people rang everyone from the RSPB ot the Council to the RSPCA, no-one helped or took any notice. A couple of them were still in situ about 2 weeks later, when an article appeared in the local paper about the mysterious disapperance form a local wildfowl park of the new batch of Peacocks! I rang them, and they came and collected the remaining ones within an hour! Do you have any wildfowl parks etc. near? They said they would have helped even if they had not been their missing birds.

as a wee aside apparently having their feathers in the house is bad luck. dunno why though
Astarte, it's the 'eye' in the feathers. It's supposed to be the evil eye, or something like that, which brings bad luck.
the superstition came from ancient mythology.
The peacock's tail is emblem of an Evil Eye, or an ever-vigilant traitor. The tale is this: Argus was the chief Minister of Osiris, King of Egypt. When Osiris the King started on his Indian expedition, he left his queen, Isis, as regent, and Argus was to be her chief adviser. Argus, with one hundred spies (called eyes), soon made himself so powerful and formidable that he shut up the queen-regent in a strong castle, and proclaimed himself king. Mercury marched against him, took him prisoner, and cut off his head; whereupon Juno metamorphosed Argus into a peacock, and set his eyes in its tail.

You should try your local authority...there is some info here from
southglos.gov

thats interesting. bit confused though as it seems to jump about the pantheons a bit, osiris and isis being egyptian, juno being roman etc. the egyptians liked a bit of everything though so did they take juno as one of their goddesses as well?
goodness knows, astarte, i got it off google. Although I had remembered the connection between about Argus/Argos of a hundred eyes, and the peacock, I couldnt remember the bit about being a traitor or how it led to bad luck. I have also found an alternative explanation, which involves a very different "Argus".
"Argus Panoptes" or "Argos" was set the task by Hera to be guardian of the heifer-nymph Io, to protect her from Zeus. Argos was a giant with a hundred eyes.To free Io, Zeus had Argus slain by Hermes. Hermes, disguised as a shepherd, first put all of Argus's eyes asleep with spoken charms, then slew him by hitting him with a stone,
According to Ovid, to commemorate her faithful watchman, Hera had the hundred eyes of Argus preserved forever, in a peacock's tail. All of this of course is Greek mythology...and totally different to the other version. I think this is the version that I heard at school, but it doesnt really make the connection as to why peacocks feathers aare supposed to be bad luck.

ah see that sounds familar to me, probably from reading about poor Io.
By MADDOG
Date 16.05.08 07:34 UTC

must admit, it's the Greek version I had heard of.
As for peacocks themselves, I'm surprised there was only one. They tend to find their way home (even after sold!) Our neighbours had half a dozen of them, but the local land baron complained that the birds were ruining his Grade II listed roof. We later discovered it was the housekeeper with a broom trying to scare the birds away that caused the damage ;-)
Anyway, call the RSPCA out, they'll enjoy the challenge.

Sorry I forgot about this thread. I have since found out they belong to a house nearby (although no house round here has a garden suitable for peacocks IMO, I thought they would need lots of space. It appears he has one female and one male and my poor housemate is a light sleeper at gets woken up every morning by them (doesn't bother me I can sleep though anything!)
So overall looks like not much can be done. Except the noise could cause a problem for some people.
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