Feb 3, 2025: With our first snowfall, it feels like winter has finally arrived on Gabriola. Our uninvited flock of pesky peacocks—who roost at night in the trees above our garage, crash onto our house roof every morning when they awake and then spend their days foraging on our property—hate the cold and snow. No surprise, since they are a tropical species, although these particular birds were born here, the legacy of an irresponsible exotic farm owner at our end of the island who abandoned his animals several decades ago when he left the island. Consequently, his guinea fowl, wild turkeys and peacocks have naturalized on our island, creating roaming flocks of various sizes. This particular flock has adopted our property as their home no matter how relentlessly we try to discourage them. They may be pretty but they force us to continuously clean up the large piles of excrement they leave behind. Plus, I can plant nothing that overwinters since they eat everything green they can find.
However, when it snows, we feel sorry for them.
