FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) \u2014 Just last week, Ishu Fenner and her family moved into their new home in the picturesque town of Great Falls, Virginia, where wildlife abounds.<\/p>\n
She discovered during the sales process that an enclosure in her backyard housed a majestic 10-year-old peacock, which she and her husband had named after a legendary escape artist.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the realtor, jokingly, I said, ‘Does the peacock come with the house? ‘” said Fenner with a laugh.<\/p>\n
The Fenner\u2019s decided to keep Houdini. They even consulted the previous homeowner on how to best care for a creature famed for its colorful coat.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was like, ‘He will roam free in the backyard and go right back into his enclosure,'” said Fenner.<\/p>\n
Last Monday, Fenner opened that gate only to learn a gut-wrenching lesson on peacock behavior. Houdini slipped out without a peep because peacocks, who are males, love to roam in search of food and females.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe he just wanted to be free. Maybe he\u2019s free. Maybe he can let his wings spread. I was trying to be positive, but I couldn\u2019t stop thinking about him. I felt bad. Predators out there. Cars. So, I was worried about his safety,” said Fenner.<\/p>\n
Two days later, 7News Anchor Scott Thuman\u2019s wife captured Houdini on video two miles from home, landing him on the news. Later that same night, guess who returned to his coop? Houdini was back. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Ishu\u2019s husband came up with the perfect moniker.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was like, ‘Hey, Houdini, you disappeared and came back,’ and I was like, ‘That\u2019s the name,'” said Fenner.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not where this story ends. Fenner wants to expand Houdini’s enclosure to include a female companion known as a peahen. Hoping love will halt his wandering ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they lay eggs, they have an incubator in there, maybe I\u2019m going to become a peacock farmer,” concludes Fenner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. (7News) \u2014 Just last week, Ishu Fenner and her family moved into their new home…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[2783,2782,2781,220,2786,2784,2785,79,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-2214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-enclosure","9":"tag-great-falls","10":"tag-houdini","11":"tag-peacock","12":"tag-peahen","13":"tag-roaming","14":"tag-safety","15":"tag-science","16":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}