Residents of a Maryland neighborhood want to find a better home for a peacock that showed up in the fall.
“I want him to be safe,” a resident said. “I don’t want anyone to be catching him and hurting him.”
No one knows where he came from or how he got there, but he has homeowners in Bowie buzzing.
“At first, it was just like, A peacock here in our area?” the resident said.
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She says the peacock made himself quite comfortable in the trees behind her house.
“It’s really beautiful to see him around, waking up in the mornings,” the resident said. “I have pictures of him jumping up to eat from my bird feeder right there and among my flowers, and it’s really pretty.”
The beautiful bird has become a sight to see, stopping traffic and attracting people from all over.
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“What the heck? What is this doing here?” neighbor Diane Rubenstein asked.
She says over the past few months, the whole neighborhood has become protective of the peacock.
She says she first spotted him in December, and she’s relieved that he made it through the cold winter months with flying colors.
“To me it’s, like, totally surprising that he’s done so well,” she said. “Don’t know how long it’s going to last.”
Residents want to get him rescued and placed in a better home before the next winter. They say they’ve called several agencies and farms in several states, but no luck.
They say he doesn’t bother anyone but it’s clear the peacock needs a pal.
“He sees his reflection and he picks at it thinking there’s another peacock there, so he’s lonely,” the resident said. “He wants a friend. Don’t we all want a friend?”
A representative for the Prince George’s County Department of Environment says they are looking into it and the state Department of Natural Resources typically deals with these types of cases.