MUIRHEAD`S MYSTERIES:Recent anti-social behaviour involving peacocks and cars in Devon.

The following is copied from The Guardian`s online edition of April 15^th 2015.

A pride of feral peacocks is causing havoc by attacking their own reflections in the bodywork of cars parked too close to their territory around a West Country estate. Apparently mistaking their own images for encroaching love rivals, the birds of Clyst St Mary, Devon, are causing thousands of pounds of damage by clawing away at vehicles.

The birds are believed to have roamed wild around the Bishops Court estate in Devon for years but people who live and work nearby say they have become bolder and more aggressive. Drivers say their vehicles have been left covered in scratches almost every day since spring sprung and the birds became agitated and frisky. Penny Hill, a manager based on a business estate close to Bishops Court, said her car had been repeatedly attacked. She said: “The peafowl roam around the area, which were presumably introduced at some point in the past.

“The peacocks, although beautiful to look at, are becoming an incredible nuisance particularly around this time every year as they are attacking and damaging vehicles. They are aggressive, territorial and intimidating.

“My nice clean car sat in the car park and a peacock spend all day attacking its reflection thinking it was another bird and becoming territorial as it’s mating season.

“The result was a bloody and scratched mess where the pecking has completely ruined the back of my car, which I take great pride and care with,” she said, adding: “I am not the first person working on the estate that this has happened to.”

Hill said complaints had been made to the estate, which is used as a venue for wedding ceremonies.

But Bishops Court insisted the peafowl were wild and had nothing to do with the house.

A spokeswoman for Bishops Court said the birds did not belong to the estate. “They absolutely do not originate with us. They are just wild. I don’t know where they come from. It is like asking where the robins or the foxes come from.”

Earlier this month a swan hit the headlines for terrorising visitors on the river Cam in Cambridge. The bird was nicknamed “Asbaby” because he is apparently the descendant of an infamous swan dubbed Mr Asbo who caused chaos on the same stretch of river before being rehomed.

There were 34 comments by today,7.50 a.m April 16^th, one of which was: “I saw the headline and thought that the article was going to be about misbehaving upper-class twits......”

The reply being :” Real upper class twits dont' give a t*** about their car.

It's the plebs you should be worried about.

I refuse to make things worse by commenting further!

Richard                                                                                                                                                                             

P.S. The *** was in The Guardian`s version.