CHESAPEAKE, Va. — Things seem to have gotten a little more colorful in areas of Chesapeake lately. You can thank a wandering peacock for that.
Someone messaged us on Facebook with video of the bird making his rounds in near Marina Reach and Creek Lane in the River Walk subdivision. In the video, you catch a flash of blue above some plants at a home there. Then, the peacock starts strolling on the walkway of the house.
The video came days after Hayley, who works at Gourmet Gang in Greenbrier, shared a Facebook post about a peacock.
In that instance on May 6, the bird was on the back side of the shopping center on Volvo Parkway where the business is located. Hayley had pictures of him walking in the parking lot and having a seat on top of a fence. She shared a number of pictures with us.
"It was an amazing Friday morning, Hayley said. "I had just gotten to work, and my coworkers at the Gourmet Gang on Volvo Parkway told me about the peacock. Certainly made my day seeing that beautiful guy!"
Peacock Makes Rounds in Chesapeake
If you were to walk from the location in River Walk to the one in Greenbrier, it's a distance of 2.8 miles and would take about 56 minutes to go from point to point on foot.
Online posts also indicated the same peacock may have been in Dominion Lakes and the area between it and River Walk.
In one post on May 4, someone wrote: "Anyone lose a Peacock? Saw a Peacock crossing the Chesapeake Expressway about 10 minutes ago. Traffic stopped to let it cross."
Smithsonian's National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute, often referred to simply as "National Zoo," says peafowl, which includes peacocks, "tend to walk or run rather than fly. They prefer to fly only in strong, short bursts to escape predators or to reach the tree tops in which they roost at night."
We checked with Chesapeake Police Department to see if the city's animal services unit received reports of a peacock roaming around any areas of the city.
Master Police Officer Leo Kosinski, spokesman for the department, said that animal control officers were aware of the situation and responded to calls several times, but each time officers go to a neighborhood, the peacock flies away when they approach him.
Kosinski said that people who live in Chesapeake are able to own peacocks.