Fowl play prompts new Souris peacock flock

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This article was published 26/01/2022 (1368 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The current Souris peacock flock is singing its swan song after becoming a bird-en in town, prompting the arrival of a new muster this summer.

The fresh birds were sought out after a delegation appeared at a council meeting last summer to ask the town to take action against the spread of the peacocks, Souris-Glenwood mayor Darryl Jackson said.

“They’re kind of an icon, not unlike the swinging bridge,” Jackson said. “It’s not that we want to rid ourselves of peacocks forever, that’s not the thought pattern at all. It’s just to help solve this other problem.”

Peacocks have been leaving their Victoria Park home to make uptown Souris their own territory every summer.

The birds roost among tall trees in residential neighbourhoods and in Souris’ downtown, leaving excrement in the popular areas.

The animals are also noisy during mating season in May, June and early July. Jackson said the males will release loud shrieks, often in the early morning, waking or keeping people up while they try and sleep.

“[In] mating season, the males are super loud. That’s their territory, that’s where they spread their feathers during the day and preen and try to attract the hens. But, at night they start this loud [shriek] — it sounds like a cat that’s being mauled to death,” Jackson said. “It’s a real eerie, eerie sound. If you imagine there is a tall tree right outside your window on the second floor and you’re wanting a little fresh air in that evening, that’s no fun.”

The birds can also be destructive. Some wise quackers have been known to preen near shiny cars; sometimes they think their reflection is a competitor and will peck away at it. The damage has sent some car owners to the autobody shop, Jackson said.

He noted the birds have never been known to chase after anyone.

The town has connected with a bird broker in Saskatchewan who will take the peacocks currently housed at a local barn in Souris.

“Once they get collected and put back in the barn for winter, we don’t really know [if they are the] offending ones,” Jackson said. “So, we just have to get rid of them all.”

The bird broker will take the fowl and have them placed in different areas of Saskatchewan.

Souris will receive around a dozen new birds for the community after the old peacocks are gone.

The old birds will be shipped west in March and the new peacocks will be introduced to Souris at the start of April.

Jackson said the town will get the peacocks acclimatized to the barn and then open the doors to let them loose into the park when the weather becomes warmer and the snow is gone in the spring.

Feeding stations will be placed around the barn and in the park to encourage the birds to roost in that area, hopefully discouraging them from exploring downtown and residential areas.

“Eventually they are going to wander wherever they want to go, that’s just the nature of the bird, but to start with we can try and keep them down there [at the park] for the early part of the year and see how it goes,” Jackson said. “There are lots of old, mature trees down in the park for them to roost — it’s not a question of their environment.”

Habituation is one of the reasons the birds were so keen to leave the park in the first place. The hope is that keeping their meals close to home will discourage their exploration of the town.

Jackson pressed residents to refrain from feeding the birds to ensure they do not become accustomed to living downtown or in residential areas.

“Part of the problem if people feed them is they’ll come back every morning and think you’re going to be at your doorstep to feed them, or they’ll sit underneath bird feeders and pick off anything that gets spilled,” Jackson said. “They don’t need to be fed.”

Sometimes, tourists will share food with the birds, unaware of the problems this gesture breeds. The birds, however, receive plenty to eat from the local grain elevator that is responsible for feeding them. They are also exceptional foragers.

The flood in 2011 was also a major factor that led to the spread of the peacocks outside the park, Jackson said. The park area was covered with about four feet of water, including in the Bowl, and this pushed the birds out and around the town.

“They’re not water birds, so that made them exit the park. And some of them — even though we get a hold of them in the fall or early winter and put them in the barn and look after them for the winter — as soon as they’re out, they get right uptown again,” Jackson said. “It’s just a habit.”

He hopes the new flock will break the cycle. However, the town may have to rotate flocks every four or five years to prevent habituation, he said.

The town uses live baited cages to catch the birds in the fall. The traps are placed first where the birds are typically seen.

He noted there are some tricky jailbirds that can take a little extra work to catch and bring to the barn for the winter.

“Some of them become very clever and they just won’t go in to take the bait,” Jackson said with a chuckle. “It’s all done quite humanely.”

Souris used to have a flock of exotic birds at its former bird sanctuary — the peacocks are the holdovers of this legacy.

The peacocks were introduced and people “just loved them.”

“It’s a community effort, and we’re just trying to show [to] our residents that are bothered by them that we hear them and we understand their concerns and we are trying to do something about it and hope it works,” Jackson said.

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