I live on a block that has been inhabited by wild peacocks for over half a century. They’re part of the landscape; on any given moment you can look out your window and see a couple of them nosing around your porch, or leaping across the backyard lawn from one garage’s roof to another. You’ll even see a mother (fyi: a dull grey peahen; the gaudy luminescent blue/green big-tailed cocks are the males) scooting down the sidewalk followed by four or five of her chicks, looking like the Partridge Family.
Visitors typically trip out that there are peacocks living in the neighborhood. Some folks won’t even believe you until they see them with their own eyes. It’s like they equate these majestic birds to mythical creatures like unicorns and centaurs.
Anyway, one of the most noticeable characteristics of these peacocks has gotta be the sound they make. They go off like clockwork in the morning, blurting and blaring a chorus of sound waves that Naylor accurately describes as “cats and dolphins with megaphones”.
Today, Sunday, they got up late. Really late. I either slept through their morning song, or they’ve been silenced for some reason.
And then, it dawned on me:
THE FIREWORKS THREW ‘EM OFF.
That’s right. This place is like a war zone during Fourth of July, an occasion that usually starts a few days prior and and lasts a couple days afterwards. The booms, which often go well into after hours, will wake the peacocks.
It’s been a few nights of this. It seems the peacocks are severely jetlagged, and haven’t had a good night’s sleep in about a week. This Sunday morning’s apparently been one they’ve used to play a little catch up on the snoozing, sleeping in until noon. I joined them.
Good morning.
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