I seem to be behind in my escaped-from-zoos-news lately.
The Daily News, though, just told me that Raul, a Bronx Zoo resident, who flew away a couple of days ago, has come home. The peacock people at the Zoo knew he would. Apparently, peacocks do things like this. They go out for jaunts, sit in trees or on buildings but get agitated when local humans evince delight and fascination and come around to take pictures.
Then, like most tourists, they fly home.
Another thing I didn’t know: peacocks wander around the Bronx Zoo grounds unimpeded regularly.
If you want to see what happens when a peacock takes up residence in a small community, sign on to BritBox for its The Yorkshire Vet series. Over a couple of episodes you can watch Peter Wright, the vet, comically chase a rampant peacock all over a community before he is dramatically captured with a lot of screeching and given a warm welcome with a guy who has a lady peacock on his farm property.
I’m finding all this quite romantic.