Peacock: The Royal Bird

The Indian peacock is one of the most magnificent birds we have on our planet. Its beauty, its size, its charm on humans, and the way it dances to attract a female all make it a unique bird. It is in every sense royal. Being an Indian I am lucky enough to see it in its natural habitat which by the way is shrinking at an alarming rate.

When I was a child, I distinctly remembered going to my uncle’s village in Punjab, when we had our summer vacations and watching this bird.  I think I was 10 or 12 at that time. We had this huge tree in our backyard and every evening this peacock use to perch there and spend the night.  Waking up in the morning, sometimes; to find it on our rooftop where we use to scatter seeds. (This was a common site those days). It used to hop around from one roof to another and then disappear in the fields. We used to collect its beautiful tail feathers and use to make pens called ‘kalem’ out of those.  We even use to keep them in our notebooks because we though it would bring us good luck in our studies. There were a lot of peacocks at that time in almost every village. Then I returned a few years later and I was talking to my uncle and I suddenly realized that the tree was not there. I immediately asked about the bird and he told me that they are not there anymore. Not even a single peacock in the whole village! It saddened me. Even though people didn’t stop putting seeds on their rooftops but still they were gone. It confused me. Now I know what we can do to our surroundings.

Let us leave my story behind and come back to the Indian peacock. The Indian blue peacock (Pavo cristatus) is native to India and Srilanka. Because of its immense beauty the Phoenicians traders in the time of King Solomon (1000 B.C.) introduced the bird to present day Syria and Egypt. In Indiait has been the part of mythology and folklore. The Hindus consider the bird to be sacred. They believe that Lord Kartikeya (Son of Lord Shiva and Parviti and brother to Lord Ganesh) rides on its back. It is even thought that the peacock can charm snakes and addle their eggs. Now we know that snakes form a part of their diet and they are even known to eat the young of Cobra the king of all snakes in India. The Greek mythology describes how the peacock got the many eyes on its train. (The train by the way is the display feathers on its tail. It consists of 100-150 feathers which the peacock sheds every year after the mating season.) According to the Greeks the goddess Hera had a beautiful priestess named Lo. Lo was greatly admired by Zeus. To protect her form Hera’s jealousy Zeus transformed Lo into a heifer. Hera tricked Zeus into giving her the heifer as a gift and set her faithful servant Argus to watch over her. Argus had numerous eyes over his body so was the obvious choice for the work. Zeus sent God Hermes to free Lo from Hera’s watchman. Hermes charmed Argus to sleep until all his eyes were closed and then killed him. To honor her faithful servant Hera took his eyes and placed them on the tail of the peacock. So now we know were those beautiful eyes of the peacock came from and I thank Goddess Hera from the bottom of my heart for that.