Peacock on the Loose

Peacock on the Veranda

One of the major perks of living in a small farming village in Punjab, India is that I get to see a lot more varieties of animals moving around freely. In the city, there is just too many things going on that one does not get to notice much of the wonderful creatures that co-inhabit the Earth with us. 

In our village, there is more than one party of peacocks. Just some trivia... It appears that a flock of peacocks with peahens is called a party, a group of peacocks with no peahens is called ostentation, a group of peafowl of whatever age and sex is called a bevy -- I learn more everyday :)

Peahens

The peafowl move around freely from rooftop to rooftop or from a roof to a tree of pole. They seem to enjoy being in high places. The peahens love to travel in groups and I have noticed that young peafowl move in a group supervised by a number of adult peahens. They can be fun to watch. 

Most villagers make sure that they throw a handful of grains on their roof for the peafowl to feed on. We do the same. Every morning, I make sure that I scatter grains of wheat on our veranda for the peafowl and pigeons while I leave small pieces of roti (flatbread) or white bread for the crows and mynahs. I also keep a large bowl of water filled to the brim. 

Peacock

Today, there was a peacock who needed a drink of water (the summer becoming way too hot to handle) and I decided to take some pictures while he was just relaxing. 

Although I have always wanted to take a picture of a peacock with his tail on display, I have not had the chance because they are pretty shy creatures. They try to stay away from humans as much as they can -- which is a good thing because there are some people who would want to harm them.