It began with a peahen named Pearl. She was the only female in a trio of peafowl that once freely roamed the small town of Naramata, British Columbia. Her chicks had the bright-blue bodies and metallic-green tail feathers that make the male members of her species iconic, but Pearl’s colouring was rare: her entire body and tail feathers were a shimmering white.
Peafowl in Naramata have been traced back to at least 2010, though some say Pearl arrived in the early 2000s, rumoured to have escaped from a nearby ranch. Over the years, Pearl mated with one of her chicks, and the flock eventually expanded as she continued to breed. Still, when and how the birds first arrived in town is a mystery. In a book of Naramata history, community historian Craig Henderson concedes that, really, “no one knows.”
