{"id":256332,"date":"2026-01-21T15:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/256332\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T15:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:33:14","slug":"runaway-peacock-dave-becomes-squawk-of-the-village","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/256332\/","title":{"rendered":"Runaway peacock Dave becomes squawk of the village"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"AlexAlex Robinson<\/p>\n

Dave the peacock has been wandering around Broughton Astley, four miles from his home, for several weeks <\/p>\n

A peacock that ran away to a new village and evaded capture for several weeks has become an unlikely social media star. <\/p>\n

Dave the peacock left his home in Claybrooke Magna, Leicestershire, early in December and an appeal to help find him led to a number of sightings four miles away in Broughton Astley. <\/p>\n

While he was on the run, Dave endeared himself to people in Broughton Astley, who set up a dedicated Facebook group, The Dave Diary, and a TikTok account, called Only Dave’s Fans, which chronicled his adventures and various sightings.<\/p>\n

Owner Alex Robinson finally recaptured Dave on Tuesday – but said he had “clearly” been kept well-fed while he was at large in the neighbouring village.<\/p>\n

Dave is part of a family of four peacocks owned by Robinson – although only one called Glenda was at home when he returned. <\/p>\n

The other two, Kenneth and Margaret, also ran away and are currently somewhere in the countryside in the village of Leire, which is nearer their home than Broughton Astley.<\/p>\n

Robinson and her partner Kyle Dewis bought the birds from livestock markets in Melton Mowbray and Thrapston about four years ago, when the peacocks and peahens cost about \u00a3200 each.<\/p>\n

She said all four birds had been “homebodies” and had not roamed further afield until recently.<\/p>\n

\"AlexAlex Robinson<\/p>\n

Dave’s owners have been keeping him free range at their yard in Claybrooke Magna<\/p>\n

Robinson said: “We do have an aviary which we do keep them in most of the time, but we like to have them free range.<\/p>\n

“Dave and his clan have been quite happy and stayed where they should be, but for the past couple of months they’ve been going off and coming back – and Dave has taken it a little bit too far this time.”<\/p>\n

While attempts were regularly made to capture Dave by both Robinson and villagers – normally by shaking a box of seeds to tempt him into a shed or outbuilding – he proved too elusive until this week.<\/p>\n

\"AlexAlex Robinson<\/p>\n

Villagers have glimpsed sightings of Dave – and hearing his distinctive cry<\/p>\n

Robinson said: “I was quite worried with the cold weather, but then again he’s a bird so he’s used to living outside and they know how to keep warm.<\/p>\n

“But he’s back safe, and looks really well.<\/p>\n

“The village are not so happy I have caught him mind.”<\/p>\n

Users of the social media accounts which chronicled Dave’s movements not only posted real sightings, but a number of tongue-in-cheek mocked up photographs including Dave in Barbados, him pumping iron in the gym and piloting a Spitfire.<\/p>\n

\"ChrisChris Midson\/ChatGPT<\/p>\n

The Dave Diary has led to a number of joke sightings<\/p>\n

The BBC spoke to a number of people in Broughton Astley on Monday – and all of them knew about Dave and his adventures.<\/p>\n

David Yanall said: “I haven’t seen him but I think most people know who he is.”<\/p>\n

John Kerr said: “The missus showed me a photo of him at the other end of the village. Someone had uploaded it to Facebook.”<\/p>\n

And Sophie Borum added: “I haven’t seen him but I have been following his adventures on the Facebook group. I’ve been trying to look out for him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alex Robinson Dave the peacock has been wandering around Broughton Astley, four miles from his home, for several…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-256332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}