Peacock Chase

5th February 2016

Peacocks are well known to attack toddlers if provoked by their sticky hands and running legs coming at them, so the vision today of Kingsley chasing down a fiery male had me nervous…and gingerly approaching the creature to gently ‘shoo’ it away from him before we had a visit to the nearest A & E.

Mating season is when the horny birds least like interfering humans about (reasonable enough). And at the best of times peafowl can be testy and don’t mix well even with domestic birds. I was certain that Kingsley was moments away from a nasty gash to the the forehead, if I didn’t intervene.

But enough about my mania. Allow me to give you some Greek mythology featuring the peacock:

The Goddess Hera was very jealous. She just missed catching Zeus, her husband, in a compromising position with a mistress called Io. Just in time, Zeus transformed Io into a lovely, white cow. Hera was suspicious though and demanded that Zeus give her the cow. Hera placed Io under the command of her servant, Argus, who was a giant with 100 eyes. Zeus wanted Io back so he commanded Hermes to kill Argus. Hermes managed to get all 100 eyes to go to sleep and he then killed Argus. Hera was so upset that she immortalised her faithful servant by preserving his eyes and placing them in a peacock’s tail.

In other words son, don’t mess with the peacocks!

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