George is a frustrated male peacock with a splendid tail that has many eyes. We can tell George is frustrated because he ofentimes, at the height of his disgruntledness, struts and preens for the female blackbirds who are nonchalantly picking worms out of the grass under the poplar trees. Now, I'm not sure what George is expecting from hisdisplay, but I am sure that the blackbirds are not looking for an amorous relationship.

George just showed up one day and because peacocks are not native to Washington state, I suspect George has an owner somewhere, though now we're his adopted family. It might just be a coincidence that the neighbors about a mile down the road used to have a male peacock but don't seem to have one any longer. Since George sleeps on our chimney (we have a two story house so the top of the chimney's about 30 feet off the ground), and basically he has his freedom to migrate whenever he wants, we consider him emancipated.

George is also a grizzled veteran. A couple of months ago someone's dog killed all of my daughter Heather's chickens, but George survived the attack. My daughter was heart broken about her loss, but the next morning she was awakened by George's plaintive call on her windowsill, "feeeedmeeee... feeeedmeeee...", so she got up at 5 am to throw some bread out on the driveway. Her outlook totally turned around because she said we could always buy some more chickens, but we could never buy a new George.

Martin, your household seems to attract/pickup/adopt a lot of strays

Cheers