Peacock
Some call him Peter; others named him Michael or Charlie. Local resident Jessica Long calls him “Roam-eo” because he seems to have staked out several square miles of residential neighborhoods he likes to roam through. The name that stuck, however, is Tivoli—the name of the street he was first reported seen on.
I didn’t intend to name him, but something about searching for him again and again, following him for hours down nearly empty streets during the peak of Covid lockdown, changed that plan and soon I was calling him Prince.
Feral peacocks are not new to L.A. County. In Arcadia to the east and Rancho Palos Verdes to the south, they’re present in such numbers that some consider them pests. In West L.A., however, a peacock sighting is quite unusual.
For this story in Nat Geo, I woke before dawn to meet Tivoli (aka Prince aka Roam-eo) at the tree where he roosted, and photographed him during his daily foraging and hanging.
Thanks to Long and other concerned residents, Tivoli is now living at a peacock sanctuary outside of Los Angeles.