Prowling Peacocks

Written by Dr. Rob Fergus

Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) are large impressive birds native to south Asia. It is the national bird of India, and justifiably famous around the world for the male’s colorful blue plumage and impressive spread tail displays.  They are popularly maintained as a semi-domesticated poultry species adding ambiance to large parks and estates in towns and cities across the United States and around the world.  While peafowl are attractive, they need a lot of room and are hard to keep from roaming—which is why they can appear as escapees just about anywhere.  Wild flocks have even become established in some places, including Arcadia and Palos Verdes, California, the foothills of the Toquima mountains in central Nevada, parts of Florida including Coconut Grove and Longboat Key, and on Oahu, Hawaii.

Peafowl can be a problem if they show up to roost in your trees or feed on your flower beds.  When this happens, the first thing to determine is if these are escaped birds—in which case their owners need to be contacted so they can remove and make reparations for any damages done by their livestock.  If the birds are part of a feral population, then your local government may have policies or plans in place for how to deal with the birds.

But what to do if you can’t find an owner for the birds or your town doesn’t have a plan for dealing with these strays?   The city of Arcadia, CA has a large free-roaming peacock population, and publishes a great pamphlet on how to deter peacocks from your property.  They recommend trimming trees that the birds may like to roost in, using sprinklers to chase the birds away, and removing or netting the plants that peacocks like to eat. 

If relandscaping your yard isn’t an attractive option for you, you may be able to deter peafowl from spending time in your yard with an automatic sprinkler system like Bird-B-Gone’s  Scarecrow.  You can deploy these scarecrows to blast the birds with a stream of water any time they come into your yard.  Just make sure to turn them off before you go out to do your own yard work!

Another option is to spray the area where the birds are feeding with non-toxic goose repellent .  Made from a safe grape extract that many birds avoid, it may be able to keep the peafowl from eating all your plants.

These measures can also work to deter roaming bands of Wild Turkeys, which are an even more common sight than free-roaming peafowl.  So give these techniques a try as your first line of defense if you have peacocks or Wild Turkeys show up and start munching on your yard.