An ode to our feathery, beautiful friends.

 

The Hazlewood Peacocks

by Anna | May 25th 2023 

If you’ve visited Hazlewood you surely have seen, or most likely heard, our family of peacocks.

They squawk and sing to welcome our guests, of course, our very own private choir, if you like. 

A little bit of history on our special squad: we have 14 peafowl in total comprising 1 male (peacock), 5 females (peahens) and 8 juveniles from last year. Of the young ones, there are two with white plumage and two with pied plumage - these are not fully developed yet but it looks like we have four or five new males! 

Our peafowl are semi-wild and roam the Hazlewood estate freely, although we do feed them regularly (our favourite job of the day!)

During the breeding season the peahens will disappear to lay their eggs. Last year, the first we knew of this was when they miraculously appeared again with newly hatched chicks. What a glorious surprise this was! The new mothers and their little ones were protected in the pen whilst the chicks developed to protect them from predators…dogs have been the biggest problem for our peacocks, so please keep your pooch under a watchful eye if you fancy a stroll in the grounds! 

The average running speed for a peacock is 10 mph…so if you see one training for their marathon around our grounds, give them a cheer! 

Our hotel dogs, Jake and Dora, are totally intrigued by the peacocks and they’ve in fact become good friends, though the peacocks do often show the dogs who’s boss.

We adore their charm, noise, breathtaking feathers and quite frankly, their sass. Check out this cheeky snap of one family member pruning, ready for our Hazlewood Wedding Season. After all, they are on the VIP list for every wedding!