A peacock that seemingly fell hopelessly in love with himself in a bathroom mirror after breaking into a Brisbane house remains on the run after being evicted.
Geoff and Delwyn Ballantyne left their Alexandra Hills home last week for an evening coffee and returned to find a fully grown peacock gazing adoringly at himself in their bathroom mirror.
“[We] assume the bird was in the front yard and as we opened the garage door he must have walked in,” Geoff said. “Because when we got in, there he was, admiring himself.”
Delwyn was the first to spot the bird and responded with alarm.
“There was a lot of screaming from my wife. She thought there must have been an intruder but then she says it’s a peacock,” Geoff said. “I did believe her, but I tried not to, because it wasn’t very believable.”
The couple attempted to break the visitor’s steadfast gazing into the mirror by offering it water and crackers. When that failed, wildlife rescuers were called in.
They wrangled the peacock into a towel then released it into nearby bushland. Since then the bird has been paying afternoon visits to Suzie Tafolo’s acreage home – also in Alexandra Hills.
Tafolo suspected the bird might have belonged to a local tattoo artist, Elliot Ross, who was looking for his missing peacock, Hex. Ross subsequently confirmed the bird in the Ballantynes’ bathroom and at Tafolo’s property was Hex, due to his unusual plumage.
“I’ve Googled how to catch a peacock, which is something I never thought I’d have to do,” Tafolo said on Monday. “One of the things it says is that they love mirrors, which makes sense in terms of how he ended up in the bathroom.”
Tafolo carted a full-length mirror from her house to the back shed where Hex has been turning up each day.
Hex appeared to take an interest in his reflection on Tuesday and Tafolo said she was hopeful he could soon be reunited with Ross who has owned the bird for a couple of years.
“This is the first time he’s gone walkabout besides going into our neighbour’s property,” Ross said.
“We’ve got a female here as well and she’s stayed. I’m guessing he’s gone walkabout trying to find another female. We’re hoping to try to catch him.”
Griffith University professor emeritus Darryl Jones, an urban ecologist and author of Wild Neighbours, has studied how birds respond to their reflections.
He believes Hex might have been lonely – but not necessarily looking for love.
“Most birds would see it as a rival or a threat or something like that, and usually fight it. But this bird might be just lonely,” he said.
“It’s pretty unusual for two males to be hanging out together, but they will sometimes. Peacocks are not that smart. He might be dumb – but he knows what a female looks like.”
