The residents of the Juniper Ridge community in Kamloops have been spotting a peacock wandering around roads and properties for the past couple of weeks and are sharing photos of their sightings.
Lovingly called “Tony” by many residents, the bird appears to be entertaining families, including that of longtime resident Justyna Burgess.
“He comes to us every couple of days and knocks on our basement window by our front door so I started to leave him some cat kibble,” she said in a message to iNFOnews.ca “We hear his calls almost every day so we know he has been close to us for a couple of weeks now. Twice he brought his girlfriend over early in the morning around and both were at our window.”
A peacock named Tony peers into a window in Kamloops on July 3. SUBMITTED/Justyna Burgess
She said her neighbours recently spotted Tony perched on her carport roof.
“Tony dug out a hole in my garden bed on a hot day as the soil was nice and cool under my big tree,” she said. “He left behind a couple of colourful feathers.”
Resident Tom Allister took a picture of the bird perched on his porch bannister early in the morning on July 3.
“He’s in good shape and seems happy and content,” he said. “He was flying over fences today. There’s a back field near my house and that’s where he is living right now. He travels the whole neighbourhood, I’ve seen him all over the place.”
A peacock perches on a porch in Kamloops in July. SUBMITTED/Tom Allister
Almost every day, a resident posts a photo of the bird on the community’s Facebook page.
“People post ‘oh, it’s at my house,’ and it’s fun for the kids, they can keep their eye out and try to spot him,” Allister said. “He’s our little Juniper Ridge mascot for the summer.”
Steven Thomson is the peacock’s owner and has been trying to catch the bird for two weeks since Tony and one of Thomson’s female peacocks went on the lam. He tried capturing the evasive bird with big fishing nets and set up a big trap in a yard the bird frequents often.
“We caught his girlfriend Princess, but she’s much more mature and tame,” he said. “We’ve tried a bunch of times to catch Tony but he’s really smart and can fly really well. If we can’t catch him I will bring her back and put her in a cage beside the trap.”
Thomson is offering a $50 reward for Tony’s capture and plans to make a calendar of every yard the bird has been photographed in during the ordeal. He can be reached through Facebook here.