Cock o' the walk

Went for a stroll round the Bill Fen site with Carl and Sean this morning, and saw parts of it that I'd not seen before.

And we saw one of the peacocks, in full display. Now, I've seen peacocks strutting their stuff before, but this was something else again. I didn't have the camera with me, but that's just as well, as a little photo taken through a wire mesh fence (he was visiting the hens) could not do this justice.

His tail must have been six feet across at ground level. Those distinctive 'eyes', one of which adorns the end of each tail feather, formed a perfectly spaced pattern of staggered circles across the surface of his tail. At the base of this, rising from his back, was the impression of scales, lapping over each other up to a height of about eight inches, of an indescribably beautiful green. In front of this, his neck and breast, in that unique, iridescent peacock blue. All his wing and body feathers were fluffed up too, rich brown, mottled and fluffy black. And he strutted around like this for ages, while the chickens pointedly ignored him, and the peahen rather irritably scuttled in front of him (could just imagine what she was thinking).

But then he did a most extraordinary thing - I apologise if the ways of peacocks are known to you of old, but I had never seen the like. He sort of shuddered and rattled the whole edifice, with an unworldly sound, maybe like the wind in the reeds but much louder; almost like gravel being poured onto a tin roof. It was mesmerising. Unlike the supremely indifferent chickens, I couldn't tear myself away.