Peacocks: Post 4 - First birds!
Updated: Oct 14
Re-homing our new birds. This was my first time owning any kind of bird. Having made the aviary show in Post 3, I was excited to go and collect the new occupants from Alex Birds in Kilkeel. I'd agreed with Alex some time before for him to reserve me a mating pair this season.
He'd agreed to hang on to them while I built the aviary which would take a month or so. The thatching for the aviary was coming from China and unfortunately there had been delays. As a result I couldn't complete the roof and everything got held up for another month. So the pair were a bit bigger than I'd initially wanted -- but at least I was getting them this year rather than waiting another season.
In hindsight I would do things a little different. But hey I was excited and impatient.
The journey to Kilkeel takes about an hour and a half each way. The kids came with me to collect the birds and watch Alex round them up with a large net and grab them by the legs to capture them. He walked to our car like a poacher with the birds hanging by his side like a couple of pheasants at Christmas. We had borrowed a dog cage that could fit in the car boot and so that's how they were transported home. The back seat was partially down so we could see and hear them a little. The dog cage was useful for then carrying them from the car in to the aviary.
Safety from foxes.
The main danger to the birds that I had been concerned about was dogs and foxes. Cats don't generally pose a threat to an adult size peafowl. Dogs and foxes do and there are a lot of both around here. Normally dogs are being walked on a lead but I wanted to be sure that if and when a dog that wasn't leashed came charging into the garden that the birds would have somewhere safe. Likewise at night when the foxes are out and come sniffing around the garden I needed a safe place for the birds.
The aviary is the first line of defence. It is secure with a locked door and entirely meshed with welded wire that a dog or fox could not bite through or untwist. Even the roof is entirely meshed under the thatching. The floor is a reinforced concrete pad so nothing can dig to get inside. The high perches inside the aviary are a second line of defence in case something did go wrong with the wire mesh security and a fox or dog somehow got in. Perhaps during the day when dogs and dog walkers are around and the birds are in the outside run a dog could charge at them. The run is only a temporary mesh wire arch weighted down at the ground. It is sufficient to stop the birds getting out but its not robust enough to prevent a dog breaking in. It would definitely slow it down while the dog or fox figured out how to get through or under the mesh. That would be enough time for the birds to run in to the aviary and fly up to safety on the 8ft high perches.
So I was extremely pleased to see that they needed no coaxing at all to go up to the perches that we had made for them. They spent the first night roosting up on these perches and every night since. The rabbit hutch turned out to be a perfect mid-height launch pad!
The temporary run.
Alex had warned me that it can be harder to re-home birds as they get older because their memory of their previous home is that much stronger.
With the new birds safely installed as soon in the season as possible I could now turn my attention to giving them a bit of space to run around outside of the aviary.
I was making things up as I went at this point because I had not properly figured out what to do with the garden since the felling of the big tree in Post 1, the removal of the fences in Post 2 and the building of the new aviary in Post 3. I actually had quite a lot of logs from the felled tree buried in the "soil". You can just about see the raised hump of the earth in the following photo. There is a mound running behind the tree trunk and the bin-burner and in front of the dark green oil tank - rising from left to right. Possibly about 2 foot high next to the aviary.
So as a temporary measure I used the spare coils of wire mesh - ones with a wider square opening that I'd decided against using on the aviary itself - to form a flimsy arch that was weighted at ground level on both sides by stapling it to some scrap wood batons. To prop the arch up internally i just drove some lightweight wooden steaks into the ground.
It wasn't pretty or robust but it was surprisingly practical and with the mesh being so open there was basically zero wind load on it so it stayed put.
The temporary run was not secure and so it was only for day-release for me to manually open the aviary door each morning and close it each night so they would be a little less cooped in while I figured out a more permanent arrangement for the garden as a whole.
Cats, mice, bats and peafowl.
I have two tabby cats Munki and Moomoo that are brother and sister from the same litter. I got them from the Cat Protection sanctuary. They love to climb trees and hunt mice and birds at night. Frequently I come down in the morning to find a half-eaten mouse laying in my kitchen, hallway or lounge. Lovely. I've even had Munki charge in through the cat flap with a bat in its mouth. It let the bat go and it was fairly unharmed and still able to fly. He then enjoyed watching the chaos ensue as my daughter and I went crazy trying to capture a bat flying around the house.
Needless to say they were pretty curious about the strange new additions to the back garden!
There has been some interesting stand-offs that I've watched with interest. So far the cats have stalked towards them but always backed down at the final pounce when the peafowl, seemingly unfazed, confidently move towards the cats! They do have quite large beaks and talons I suppose.
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