This was a good, quick read though honestly a bit boring in some parts. It’s part memoir- about how this guy who owned just enough land to keep a miniature pony and two chickens, spontaneously got three peacocks (which later became six, and then started laying eggs . . . ). He jumped into peafowl ownership without knowing much about them except that they are extremely beautiful, and sometimes noisy- so the reader learns with him along the way. From struggling to build them a proper enclosure (disappointed to find they can’t really roam free) to puzzling over what to feed them (no one makes “peacock chow”) to dealing with sudden emergency vet bills (when his bird ate bits of toxic metal). There’s a lot more to this book than just the personable, hands-on ownership learning curve, though (which were my favorite parts). There’s family life, with his two young sons, wife who starts to loose her patience with the peacock nonsense, and a bad-tempered cat. There’s other pets- quite a few who meet untimely ends: two pet chickens, a pug dog, a snake that doesn’t live long after arriving as a Christmas present for one of the boys. There’s diversions and asides into the history of peacocks in art, how they were first introduced into different parts of the world, and so on. I really was not keen on reading the life history of wealthy people who once owned peacocks, so I skimmed many of those pages. And there’s stories about the author’s own work in reporting on troubling incidents all over the world. Mass shootings, refugee crises, etc. Even a disturbing story about a neighborhood in California where somebody started killing peacocks (not everybody likes them- because of the mess they leave, destruction of ornamental plants, and incessant loud calls during the breeding season).
So: it was interesting for the bits I learned about peacocks and the personal story on keeping them- but all the history stuff and forays into other topics made it feel scattered. I did like the part where the author attends a small convention of peacock owners and enthusiasts. I had no idea there were so many peacock color varieties. Some of them are very striking but personally I think the pied and white-eyed (the eye-spots in the train) peacocks look weird.
Borrowed from the public library.