Managing your peacocks

Today’s article is from “The Telegraph” (UK) and talks about managing your peacocks

'I don’t manage my peacock Henry,' says the BBC's John Humphrys. 'He manages me’

The presenter of Radio 4's Today programme knows all about birds terrorising villages

'Henry is extremely sociable,’ says Humphrys. 'He has a tendency to peer over my shoulder while I’m reading’ Photo: Getty Images

By John Humphrys

10:00PM BST 04 Jun 2013

When this newspaper ran a story about a mischievous peacock causing havoc in a small Derbyshire village, I referred to it on the Today programme and casually mentioned that I, too, happened to own a peacock whose name is Henry. Could I elaborate, I was asked later that morning, on what it is like to manage a peacock? No, I said. It can’t be done. You do not “manage” a peacock. It manages you.

Nor, in truth, do I own Henry – not in the sense that I set out to acquire a peacock. Why would you? I own a house with some land in Greece, and Henry decided to move in. That was five years ago. My son Christopher and I spent the following summer trying and failing to get him to move out again.

It’s not that we disliked his company. On the contrary, Henry is extremely sociable – he has a tendency to peer over my shoulder while I’m reading – and, of course, he is extremely beautiful when he displays. He also has an insatiable appetite for the cicadas that make such a racket when they emerge from their years of living underground to fly around the place and have sex. Henry, we believe, does not like sex, though he is not free of vices. He does like booze.

Indeed, it proved to be almost his downfall – but more of that later.

No, the reason Henry had to go was that his owner wanted him back. That and the fact that the men in my village wanted to kill him. Once word got around that there was a peacock loose on my land, neighbouring olive farmers, whom we might not see for months on end, took to strolling regularly around our boundary, shotguns slung casually over their shoulders, happy to stop for a chat but always with one eye scanning our hillside for a bright flash of feather.

You couldn’t really blame them. You don’t get rich from a small olive grove and they’d shoot pretty much anything that moves. Their favourite prey during the few days in the spring when they cross the Peloponnese are the tiny but famously tasty ortolan, which are meant to be protected but are blasted by so many guns that if you looked up you’d probably be blinded by falling shot. Ortolan are eaten whole, in one bite – beak and all – but Henry could have fed a family and I think he knew it, so he made himself scarce when the guns appeared.

His real enemy was Dimitris, his legal owner. Dimitris bred peacocks in the next village and Henry was his only male. His job was to service the females, but he’d obviously got bored with sex and made his break for freedom. My villagers didn’t tell Dimitris – something to do with an ancient feud between villages – but word eventually reached him, and he came looking.

At first he was slightly suspicious. Maybe he thought we’d kidnapped Henry. So we told him that of course he could have him back – if he could catch him. He couldn’t.

The first attempt lasted a morning. He and his young nephew arrived with big nets. Henry took one look at his old owner and disappeared into our woods with the two men running after him. Hours later they reappeared, sweating and bleeding, with a million scratches and empty nets.

The next attempt was an extremely elaborate set-up involving a net suspended over Henry’s feeding bowl freshly filled with his favourite grain in the cottage garden, Dimitris hiding out of sight, and Christopher sitting casually with the end of the rope in his hand waiting for Henry to appear. Henry would approach the bowl, Christopher would release the rope and gotcha! Henry appeared, gave one of his haughty “what kind of idiot peacock d’you take me for?” glares and went back into the woods. Christopher gave up and Henry came to feed.

The next plan was simple. Dimitris – an old man who had, we all thought, fallen in love with my beautiful daughter-in-law and would chat to her for hours – had no doubt at all that it would work. He arrived the next day with an old can full of corn soaked in foul‑smelling ouzo, which he handed to me.

“You throw him a few grains, he gobbles them up, and then… pouf!… he falls over. I rush out of the cottage, throw a net over him and it is done. Simple!”

And this time Henry cooperated. I rattled the tin and he came running. I scattered a few grains and he gobbled them up. But instead of falling over, he wobbled a bit and looked for more. I heard Dimitris hiss: “Another handful.” Henry gobbled that up, too, and swayed even more. But he stayed on his feet. “More!” said Dimitris.

By now Henry was swaying, rather than wobbling – clearly on the point of collapsing. Dimitris rushed out of the cottage, net in hand, yelling in triumph – and Henry flapped his powerful wings, and took off heading in a not quite straight line for the top of the tallest cypress in my woods. And there he stayed.

For a while we hung around at its base, wondering how long it would be before a paralytic peacock fell off its perch like the dead parrot in the John Cleese sketch, but then gave up and went for a swim. We did not see Henry again until Dimitris had long departed. Henry reappeared the following morning looking as jaunty as ever.

So that, we thought, was that. We’d done our best for poor old Dimitris and Henry had triumphed. Game over. We were, secretly, rather happy. Henry was, after all, part of the family. The children would have missed him terribly.

But Dimitris was not done. He phoned to say he would be back again and this time he would bring friends. He did indeed. He had the local fire brigade with him.

It took no more than a few minutes. The men unfurled their hose, rolled it into the lemon grove and waited for the always curious Henry to appear. One powerful jet was all it took. Henry couldn’t even lift his wings, let alone flap them. The net went over him and his squawking, sodden body was carted out to the van and dumped in the back.

We all stood at the gate and waved goodbye and might even have shed a little tear. Christopher shouted after the departing van: “Farewell, old friend! We’ll come to see you on visiting days!”

I went to bed with a heavy heart and in the morning took my usual stroll through the lemon grove down to the beach for my swim. And there he was. “Hello, Henry,” I said, as I’d said a hundred times before. And then I stopped. Henry? Couldn’t be. He was caged up with his doubtless admiring harem of hen peacocks in the next village across the bay. But Henry it was.

Over breakfast we talked about changing his name to Houdini and then Dimitris arrived. He was a broken man – up to a point.

“So Henry is yours,” he said. “Now you must pay me 100 euros for him.” And we did.

See what I mean? How can you write about managing a peacock? Peacocks like Henry manage you.