The Peacock's Tail

Everytime I see a peacock proudly showing off its tail, advertising his higher quality to a potential mate, the one thing that comes to mind is the Handicap Hypothesis - where the male displays his "quality" to the female through costly traits. In this case, the long tail of the peacock makes it more vulnerable to predators, but a surviving peacock uses the tail to communicate his fitness potential. I am sure many peahens found this guy here quite attractive! Back to blogging after a big break :)

Land of Enchantment

I took this picture when Shankar and I were driving through the Jemez Mountains, on our first road trip ~ way back in 2004! On that trip we drove from Kansas and spent a week in New Mexico - few days in the Enchanted Circle, a couple of days in Albuquerque and an afternoon in Santa Fe. This was the trip we fell in love with the colors and the beautiful history of the land. May be one day we will get to live there!

Peacock and a Prairie Dog

This totally qualifies as something funny! When we were in Albuquerque a couple of summers back for the ASM conference, the picnic was at the zoo. In almost all the zoos I have been to in the US, the peacocks get to wander around, and also get in some of the other animals enclosures. When we were watching the prairie dogs, this adolescent peacock, got in their enclosure. But I suppose he didn't quite realize what he was getting into. The prairie dogs kind of spooked him, as they were running and rolling around.

The peacock, opened up its tail, hoping the myriad of 'eyes' may scare the prairie dogs. But then, one of the prairie dogs decided that the feathers look way too yummy. He just walked up to the peacock and started to nibble on one of the feathers. It sent the poor peacock into a frenzy. Every time it moved, the prairie dog just kept walking up to it, may be wanting to play! It was such a different scene from watching prairie dogs in the wild, to seeing this silly behavior in a zoo. Needless to say, we spent quite a bit of time watching these guys and laughed so hard :)