It's time to strut your stuff at the San Diego Zoo!

Today's post is a guest post, a collaborative effort of
Russel Ray, San Diego home inspector
and owner of Russel Ray Photos,
and Eric Cooper,
a photographer with Russel Ray Photos
and a budding WordPress guru.
Hope you enjoy it, especially the pictures.

There are quite a few free-ranging peafowl at the San Diego Zoo. The peahens pretty much stay hidden most of the time, but right now the peacocks are strutting their stuff in all their magnificent glory, and making a lot of racket, too. Excepting for the noise, it's almost as if they have their own little fashion walkway in Paris.

Up on the platform:

On the runway:

Show everything to the audience, front and back:

It's always good if you know your audience. This peacock didn't, but the white-faced whistling duck didn't really care. He was not impressed:

Always thank makeup for the great job they do:

Once you get paid, you can laugh all the way to the bank at all the clowns who show up to watch you strut your stuff:

And a couple of months later, take responsibility for your little one. Don't make mommy come looking for you with little one in tow:

Most of the time the peafowl are hanging around right at the front entrance, on top of the buildings, in the trees, and, where they get easy food, in Flamingo Lagoon.

Peafowl are not native to San Diego, but out in Lakeside and Santee, there was a small, private collection of exotic wildlife many decades ago. As the owner aged and couldn't care for his collection or maintain their habitats, some wildlife escaped before authorities could relocate them.

There are at least two flocks of peafowl living in the wild around Lakeside and Santee, and enjoying themselves immensely. The flock that I am familiar with lives on about six acres of land owned by a friend of mine. Although he has a great little resort — tennis, volleyball, basketball, pool, spa — I've learned not to crash at his house after a party. The peafowl get on the roof and really make a racket scratching and squawking in the early morning.

San Diego Zoo location:

View Larger Map

Originally posted at Russel Ray Photos

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