A peacock in Gresham

When I was a kid growing up in the West Hills,  we would sleep outside at night.   Not too far away,  through the canyons northward,  was the Portland Zoo.   One of the distinctive hallmarks of my memories as the sky faded and I watched the stars appear was the sound of the lions roaring and the peacocks crying in the distance.   

So it was that my hearing came to attention several nights ago as we sat on our back deck in Gresham.   Clearly in the distance,  I heard a peacock's distinctive call,  something like a cat's meow but repeated in stacatto fashion.  "Mar, " I said in puzzlement, "that's a peacock."     On another night later,   as we were abed but not asleep,   I heard it again.  My thought was that "some damn fool" must have gotten a peacock as an exotic pet.   

Last night,  Sunday night,   we were eating dinner on the back porch despite the somewhat cloudy and cool weather.  As usual in our neighborhood,  no one else was out and even the traffic seemed minimal.   Shortly after eight though,   two or three small groups of people appeared a block or so away---calling to each other across the street.   At about the same time, we heard repetitively a honking noise,  almost as if someone were blowing short bursts into a trumpet reed without an instrument attached.  I commented on the oddity of these events when what to our wondering eyes should appear over the neighbor's rooftop but a peacock,   calmly walking up the shingles.    The neighbors out in the street nearby were trying to lure it to eat corn and wondering what to do.    The peacock let out another honk, and then changed its call to the more traditional and mournful cry that I remembered from my youth.   Mar ran to get her camera.   I,  having grown up playing in the woods and imagining myself a hardy pioneering type,  always tried to mimic bird calls,   so I began attempting playback to the peacock.   The bird,  silhouetted in the dimming light  paced back and fort for several minutes,  continuing to honk and moan.   Mar,  camera in hand,   went off to try to get a better angle down the street.    The other neighbors engaged in conversation about what to do.   I pulled out my phone and looked up the Multnomah County animal control number.   They had 'adopt a dog' but nothing about 24 hour bird rescue.    I looked up Audobon Society and got much the same result.   The peacock marched over the crest of the roof and out of site,  only to appear on another neighbor's roof one house to the east.  I realized that it was going to be very difficult to track and catch a large aggressive bird that was able to leap from roof to roof through a neighborhood.   I also pitied any small pets that got in its way.   My  recollection was that the Zoo eventually stopped letting them walk about freely because they occasionally became threatening.   While I had my phone out,  I googled 'peacock call' and found a youtube video with a nice sequence of peacock crying.    I turned on speaker phone,  climbed up on a bench and replayed the recording several times in the direction the peacock was last seen.   The daylight faded to black.   One or two more honks came from the distance.   The neighbers went inside.   Mar and I concurred that the peacock had probably holed up somewhere for the night.  I seemed to remember that they did not keep calling late into the night when I was a child.

Whatever the reality,  I am certain the story is not over.   There is a peacock loose in Gresham.   Probably a somewhat scared and hungry peacock looking for others of his kind.   Not much chance of success there.    And I doubt the civil authorities have launched a bird hunt to bring him in.   We'll have to see what happens.   Meanwhile,  I'm going to have to practice my peacock call.