Hex was found in an Alexandra Hills home last week admiring himself in the bathroom mirror. Since then, a whole-of-suburb search has been under way
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A pet peacock that went on the run after breaking into a Brisbane couple’s house has been reunited with its owners after a week-long chase and a brush with death.
Alexandra Hills couple Geoff and Delwyn Ballantyne went out for a coffee last week and returned to find Hex the peacock admiring himself in their bathroom mirror.
The large bird was evicted by wildlife officers and released into nearby bushland. He’s been popping up in back yards ever since, sparking a suburb-wide hunt by hundreds of locals tracking his movements on social media.
Hex was captured in a residential yard at Alexandra Hills on Thursday. But his owners, local tattoo artist Elliot Ross and his partner Cassie Alexander, were horrified to find he’d collected half a dozen ticks during his time on the run.
They took the peacock to a 24-hour veterinary hospital but the news wasn’t good.
“We left the clinic with very heavy hearts … genuinely unsure whether we’d see our beautiful boy again,” Alexander said.
“But they decided to try an antiserum normally used for dogs, which has also been successful in treating other animals, and Hex has responded amazingly.”
Hex subsequently returned home and was been reunited with peahen Nyx, who potentially wasn’t meeting his romantic needs.
“When it’s breeding season they say it’s good to have two females or the males can go looking elsewhere. We did have another female coming this weekend but I guess we were too late,” Ross said on Friday.
Friend Jordy Barker was the one who captured Hex.
“I haven’t caught a peacock before but I used to live on a farm and had to catch turkeys and chickens all the time,” she said. “It was just like catching a turkey.”
Ross said “we had cornered him and used blankets to cover his escape”.
Then “Jordy just dived in and grabbed him by his legs. He was going ballistic but she held on. She has no fear.”
Griffith University professor emeritus Darryl Jones, an urban ecologist and author of Wild Neighbours, has studied how birds respond to their reflections.
He said earlier this week that Hex might have been lonely – not necessarily looking for love.
“Most birds would see it as a rival or a threat or something like that, and usually fight it. But this bird might be just lonely,” he said.
“It’s pretty unusual for two males to be hanging out together, but they will sometimes. Peacocks are not that smart. He might be dumb – but he knows what a female looks like.”
