Looking for love? Brisbane couple return home to find runaway peacock admiring itself in the mirror

A couple in Brisbane, Australia, returned home from their coffee date to find a peacock admiring itself in the bathroom mirror. Delwyn Ballantyne spotted the bird and started screaming. Her husband, Geoff, thought there was an intruder in their home. However, he was astounded to see the peacock looking at itself lovingly. "[We] assume the bird was in the front yard and as we opened the garage door he must have walked in. Because when we got in, there he was, admiring himself," Geoff said.

The incident happened last week in the Alexandra Hills area of Brisbane. The couple went out in the evening for coffee, and the peacock managed to somehow sneak into the empty house. Geoff said at first he couldn't believe her wife when she shouted that there was a fully-grown peacock in the bathroom. “I did believe her, but I tried not to, because it wasn’t very believable," he said.

Woman Googles, ‘how to catch a peacock’

The peacock continued to admire itself in the mirror and did not budge even when the couple offered it water and crackers. They called wildlife services, who caught the bird in a towel and released it into a bushland. But the peacock is still roaming in the area and visits Suzie Tafolo’s home in the afternoon. Suzie said she even Googled "How to catch a peacock". She learned that the birds love mirrors, and so took a full-length mirror to the back shed where it keeps showing up. The mirror once again caught his eye as Suzie also saw the bird looking at its reflection.

The peacock is apparently named Hex and belongs to a local tattoo artist, Elliot Ross. Suzie said he had been looking for his pet bird and confirmed from photos that the one roaming in Alexandra Hills is definitely Hex. “This is the first time he’s gone walkabout besides going into our neighbour’s property,” Ross said. He suspects Hex is out looking for another female despite having one at his house.