The Feral Peacocks of Pinecrest

A Tale of Two Cities....

Strange thing about visiting my mom in South Florida. I find it incredibly hard to write when I do. I don’t exactly know why. Perhaps Daughter Me and Writer Me struggle to occupy the same brain space at the same time. I could blame it on my newfound distaste for multitasking, but the truth is, Writer Me needs a lot of handholding.

I may not write much when I’m in South Florida, but I do have a muse. Walking around the neighborhood, complaining to a writer friend about my Terrible Writer’s Block, I text her a photo of my current situation. This, I tell her, is what I should be writing about.

Whenever I visit my mom, the second thing I do (after giving her a hug) is venture around the block, in search of the Feral Peacocks of Pinecrest.

To me, everything looks better with a peacock in the picture. And yet, they’re considered pests in these parts by those who live among them. I consider this a question of perspective, as those who live among the peacocks here regard the peacocks as living among them, rather than the other way around.

Ask a local and you’ll get a laundry list of lawlessness. Peacocks poop on Porsches (porches, too). They shriek nonstop like the proverbial woman who’s just encountered a mouse. (I can attest to this, and no, it’s not sexist. It’s exactly how I would scream.) They also have a have a habit of thinking their reflection is another peacock—a habit that yields large numbers of negative interactions between peacocks and highly polished, well-maintained, expensive automobiles. See above re: Porsches.

I hear this, and all I can think is, This is what passes for a Big Problem around here? Yes, everyone around here insists, it’s exactly what passes for a Big Problem.

Consider the following exchange with my brother, whose town (adjacent to my mom’s) is likewise besieged.

My brother: “They sleep in the tree above my car and crap on it. Every. Single. Night.”

Me: “Did you ever consider parking somewhere else?”

My brother: Silence.

Never underestimate the seriousness with which South Floridians approach the question of parking. It runs deep. It’s been well over thirty years since I left, and I still will spend an hour cruising a parking lot to get a “good space” next to the entrance of whatever building I’m visiting. And if a South Floridian considers a space theirs, good luck to the person (or bird) that dares to suggest otherwise.

But still, peacocks? A problem? Take it from this Floridian-by-birth/Jersey-Girl-by-marriage. You don’t know from “problem” birds until you’ve encountered the wild turkeys of suburban New Jersey. The wild turkeys work in gangs—well-coordinated, carefully choreographed gangs. A peacock might lure you to stop your car like a sexy hitchhiker, with a flash of a long blue neck or a swish of fanned tailfeathers. But a gang of wild turkeys will block your path like scalawag highwaymen, eager to have their way with you. Or, at least, your car. (God help you if you’re walking.)

While driving through the bucolic New Jersey suburbs, I’ve been stopped by a wild turkey standing in the middle of the road, to find my car suddenly surrounded by five wild turkeys who’ve materialized out of nowhere as a sixth wild turkey appears in the driver’s side window to case the interior. I think this last one said something along the lines of, “We’re going to take your hub caps now.” But I’m not sure, because (1) there was no way I was going to roll down the window to clarify the situation, and (2) I decided to execute an evasive maneuver. But I digress….

While there seems to be unity in both my mom’s town and my brother’s about there being a Peacock Problem, it’s Tale of Two Cities when it comes to the solution.

My mom’s town has gone to great lengths to deal with the Peacock Problem. Actually, small lengths. As in, really small. They call it a Peacock Mitigation Program. When I first heard the term, I assumed it was a euphemism for something really bad, like something that involved a sledgehammer. While it is a euphemism for what they really do, what they really do isn’t quite what I feared.

The Peacock Mitigation Program doesn’t take a sledgehammer to The Problem, it takes a scalpel. Literally. It’s a Peacock Vasectomy Program, in which the town traps male peacocks (presumably less clever ones that, when you think about it, perhaps should be allowed to mate?), pays a vet to operate on a part of their anatomy for which the peacocks are so aptly named, puts them up at a resort for a few days to recuperate, then releases them back into the neighborhood from which they were so ignominiously taken, with a telltale band around their ankle like a Scarlet V. According to the vet, the vasectomized birds are still as cocky as ever (a pun for which I will not apologize). No harm, no fowl (or, at least, no little fowls). Actually, that would be a superb slogan for the Peacock Mitigation Program. I think I’ll trademark it.

Meanwhile, my brother’s town has taken a different approach. Around the time my mom’s town declared war on peacock penises, my brother’s town declared itself a bird refuge. I went for a walk there with my sister-in-law recently. And, I have to admit, it’s bedlam. Everywhere you look, lawless peacocks are cavorting without a dollop of decorum. And you know what?

It’s FABULOUS!

There are peacocks in trees. Peacocks peering into windows, looking like they want to find a way in. Peacocks on rooftops. Peacocks blocking doorways. Baby peacocks. (So many baby peacocks!) And not a single one has a telltale band around its ankle like the neutered Peacocks of Pinecrest. No, these peacocks are partying like it’s 1999.

Would I feel differently about all this if I lived here? I suppose it’s possible, but I’m not here to dabble in hypotheticals. I’m perfectly happy being a peacock aunty, meaning I get to enjoy the peacocks but I don’t have to live with the peacocks. So of course I love them. Because I get to go home. And, while I may have grown up in Florida, Florida is no longer home.

There are so many things I’ll never understand about Florida (aside from the parking imperative, which makes perfect sense), much of which I will leave for another day. High on my list is why this southernmost of states chose the northern mockingbird as its state bird. In a state where a simple walk can lead me past white ibis, roseate spoonbills, cattle egrets, herons, limpkins, Egyptian geese, parrots, macaws, parakeets, roosters, and, yes, peacocks, Florida chose the mockingbird. I may just spend the rest of my life wondering why. And every walk I take in my mom’s neighborhood, and my brother’s, will leave me wondering anew.

I wasn’t going to write about the Feral Peacocks of Pinecrest. I’ve started to many times, but I’ve always stopped because, I thought, how much can I say about birds undergoing micro-surgery?

Then my writer friend came back with the perfect response: Write a micro-essay.

And so I did. I even started it in South Florida. (But finished it in New Jersey. Of course.)