At least a dozen bright blue Indian peacocks have been wandering the streets of Errol Heights in Southeast Portland since at least as far back as 2007, according to long-time residents. The birds are such a feature of the neighborhood, they’re even visible on the Google maps street views of Errol Heights.
It’s unclear how the birds – which are native to Southeast Asia – got to Southeast Portland, but they’ve become a quirky feature of the neighborhood over the years, locals say. Bird seekers sometimes drive up the hill and around the streets off of Errol Heights Park just to get a glimpse of the peafowl, causing minor traffic jams on these otherwise lazy residential streets.
The birds are beautiful, but loud. Their high-pitched squawks during mating season, which runs from spring to fall, are especially ear piercing and can go through the night.
Male peacocks – females are technically peahens – have bright blue necks and long, flashy tail feathers, which they display as another part of their mating ritual. (Presumably peahens like the calls, but most humans could be forgiven for preferring the feathers.)
Indian peacocks wonder the Errol Heights neighborhood in Southeast Portland on Sunday evening, June 29, 2025.Mark Graves/The Oregonian
These flashy members of the peasant family pop up frequently on Portland Reddit channels and in the local press, often with a quip about someone having lost their bird. The oldest post about the non-native bird species roaming the streets of Portland discovered by The Oregonian/OregonLive Thursday was written by the Associated Press in 2013 and appeared in this very paper.
“Three peacocks have taken to strolling the streets of a Southeast Portland neighborhood near 41st Avenue and Woodstock Boulevard, KGW reports,” read the post. (The KGW post is no longer available.) “Residents say the trio showed up a few days ago and started making their rounds.”
The story went on to explain that the then-Audobon Society (now known as the Portland Bird Alliance) could not take in the stray birds because they were not native.
Brodie Cass Talbott, an expert birder and engagement manager at the Portland Bird Alliance, confirmed that his animal protection society still couldn’t treat non-native species. In fact, from a native bird’s perspective, he said peacocks were mostly just a menace.
“(Peacocks) are omnivores so they’ll eat things including small animals, so ground nesting birds could potentially see nestlings taken,” Cass Talbott said. “And there’s always a chance for them to be a vector for disease through their droppings.”
Peacocks are easy to domesticate, Cass Talbott said, but they make crummy pets – “they’re really loud and they poop a lot” – so peacock owners often manage to lose the large, iridescent birds. And since they don’t have a lot of predators, they can wander the streets of Portland pretty much undisturbed.
Cass Talbott said Portlanders wishing to protect native bird species would do better to minimize outdoor lighting and keep their cats indoors, than to worry too much about peacocks. He said windows were another big killer of city birds.
“There are a lot of urban threats to birds,” Cass Talbott said. And while they’re a firm negative for him, “peacocks are not our top concern.”
A peahen and her chicks feed along a sidewalk in Errol Heights in Southeast Portland on Sunday evening, June 29, 2025, as a peacock looks on. Residents say at least a dozen of the bright blue birds have roamed the neighborhood since 2007.Mark Graves/The Oregonian
Originally from India and Sri Lanka, according to the internet, Indian peacocks can survive fairly cold winters, live more than a decade and have a lot of babies. Flocks, sorry – musters, have become so common in parts of California and Florida that deciding what to do with them has become an issue of significant concern, according to recent news stories from those regions.
One especially graphic post on a Joy of Birdwatching website by someone who considers the birds an invasive nuisance describes them as loud, aggressive birds that are also prolific poopers. The Oregonian/OregonLive was careful not to verify how aggressive they were – the males have leg spurs (!) – by keeping a safe distance and using a zoom lens.
For one resident of the Erroll Heights neighborhood, the peacocks have ceased to be remarkable and have just become part of the local wildlife, like squirrels or crows. It’s the tourists – the people who drive around hoping to get a glimpse of the big bright birds – that bothered her the most.
— Lillian Mongeau Hughes and Mark Graves, The Oregonian/OregonLive