Peacock flocks with birds of different feather

? In a rural area southwest of Pittsburg is a bird suffering from an identity crisis. Casper, a beautiful white peacock with touches of gold on his tail, has delusions of being a turkey.

If he had bothered to read an encyclopedia, he would have learned that peacocks are actually more closely related to pheasants and quail.

The confused bird formerly lived with Christine Bitner, her husband Eric, and children.

“I’d had him about a year,” Bitner said. “I run Christine’s Critter Cuts, and anybody who knows me knows I have critters everywhere. My mother-in-law went on a trip with my husband; she saw some peacocks and thought I needed to have some.”

Eventually she acquired two of them, Casper and a black-shouldered peacock.

She said the customers at her pet-grooming business enjoyed seeing the peacocks lounging around the yard. “Casper was always sitting on the porch or on my husband’s old red pickup truck,” she said.

Casper developed a fondness for dry cat food, possibly because the food Bitner uses is corn-based.

“I’d call ‘here, kitty, kitty’ and Casper would come and fight the cats to get at the food,” she said.

When she purchased ceramic swan planters and placed them on her porch steps, Casper thought they were real birds and did a ritual dance around them.

Casper, a white peacock, right, forages with his newly adopted flock of wild turkeys near Cherokee. The bird had lived with Christine and Eric Bitner's family for about a year before taking to the nearby woods and joining the flock of wild birds.

“It took a week before he decided to let them alone,” Bitner said.

He and the other peacock were buddies, she said, and roosted together every night.

But that ended last October when the black-shouldered peacock was killed, possibly by hunters who couldn’t tell a peacock from a turkey.

“After that, I thought Casper seemed lonely, and in November he went missing,” Bitner said. “I ran newspaper ads trying to find him, but I thought he was coyote bait. All I had left of him was one little tail feather.”

Then, a few weeks ago, a neighbor came by and informed Bitner that she had seen Casper with a flock of wild turkeys.

“I thought at first she had just seen a white turkey, but I got in the car and drove to where she saw the flock, and it was him,” Bitner said. “The turkeys sometimes do come close to the farm, and he must have seen them, been curious, and gone off with them.”

She got out of the car, approached the birds and called “Here, kitty, kitty,” hoping to tempt Casper with memories of his favorite treat.

But it didn’t work. Casper chose to remain with the turkeys.

Bitner said she was surprised the turkeys seem to have accepted Casper as a member of the flock.

“But peacocks and turkeys do have similar living patterns,” Bitner said. “They scratch the ground like chickens, roost in the trees and fly short distances. They seem to have similar dances and rituals. I just wonder what might happen during mating season.”

She said Casper is only about 2 years old, and male peacocks don’t develop their full fan tail until they’re 3. Still, he’s a fine looking bird, and might well tempt a hen turkey.

“Maybe if the flock comes close to the farm, Casper might remember and return home,” Bitner said. “But even if he does, that doesn’t mean he won’t go back to the turkeys later.”

There will be another turkey hunting season in April, and she fears that Casper may meet the same fate as his old friend.

“There are some people who don’t pay attention and just shoot at anything,” Bitner said. “But maybe, if they know there’s a peacock out there, they might be more careful of what they shoot at.”