Pesky peacocks face the snip

A peahen and her chicks crossing a road in Pinecrest, Florida, where the birds are breeding and running amok. — ©2023 The New York Times Company

THE prevailing theory about why the peacocks flocked to suburban Pinecrest is that, like many a Floridian, they went hunting for better real estate.

Long a mainstay in bohemian Coconut Grove, a Miami neighbourhood up the road, the non-native birds began making their way south in recent years, local officials suspect, because old Grove cottages were being turned into immense modern houses that chipped away at the area’s lush tree canopy.