In my west Houston neighborhood, peafowl — that's peacocks and peahens — waddle across yards, peck their way down streets and squawk in front of houses as they fan their luminous tails. People feed them, but they don't actually belong to anyone. They're as wild as the neighborhood squirrels.

And it's not just in my neighborhood, Nottingham Forest. After I asked around, I found that peafowl colonies have taken up residence in other parts of Houston too: in neighborhoods by Hobby Airport, and on the property of the now-closed Vargo's Restaurant on Fondren near Woodway.

(Nor is it just Houston. Many Florida neighborhoods consider themselves infested with the birds -- so much that South Miami Mayor Philip Stoddard has urged residents to make omelets out of peacock eggs. L.A. has at least four separate colonies; one of them is stalked by a Mercedes-driving serial killer. Writes the Los Angeles Times on July 23: "Peacock killer used high-powered pellet gun; more violence feared.")

Some people love the showy birds. And obviously, some hate them. When I began reporting this story, some Houstonians would talk to me only if I vowed to shield their identities, and the identities of their neighborhoods. One person worried about "peacock tourism." It was if a celebrity had moved into the neighborhood.

Invasive but not evil

How did peacocks get here? I asked Daniel Brooks, the curator of vertebrate zoology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, who studies invasive species. The big birds obviously aren't native to Houston, he said: As their name implies, Indian Blue Peafowl originated in India. But they do fine here.

People send Brooks reports on exotic birds that they find throughout Houston. One report claimed peafowl were introduced in 1980 to Houston by a family who owned a ten-acre property at the end of Whitewing, in west Houston. This story has permeated Houston lore, and other residents of neighborhoods around Houston have said they heard the same tale.

At any rate, it's possible these days to purchase peacocks from Texas-area online breeders, like Peacocks and More in Conroe, Texas. According to the online price list, the birds cost roughly between $100 to $200.

Peafowl are considered an invasive species, but Brooks says that not all invasives are evil. Here in Houston, he says, peafowl probably won't compete with native species. Their niche is different than any native bird's: Nothing already here is as big or as omnivorous. Peafowl will eat just about anything.

Priscilla the good peacock

In some cases, colonies have existed for decades as half-wild quasi-pets, fed by people who like them -- and sometimes grow deeply attached.

Almost four years ago, Lorraine Wulfe saw a gorgeous bird peering at her through her living-room window of her home near Memorial, just outside the 610 loop.

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Wulfe named the peahen Priscilla. And she walked around her neighborhood and posted online, trying to find out whether the bird was someone's lost pet. Eventually, she found that Priscilla belonged to a man with several peacocks, who lived on the other side of a ravine next to Wulfe's house.

"I almost started crying," she says, "because at that point I had already had her for about a month and had gotten very attached to her, and I knew I had to give her back."

Wulfe called the owner and asked to keep Priscilla. He said yes.

For about a year, in emails to friends and family, Wulfe chronicled her experience with her beloved bird -- until one day, Priscilla went missing. Judging from the remains, Wulfe suspects that she was attacked by raccoons.

"It was just an incredible, incredible time of my life, having her," Wulfe remembers. "She just brightened up my day, looking out and seeing her."

Meanie the outlaw

Not all peacock stories are sweet.

When Billie Rumsey's neighbors bought Meanie the peacock, they didn't know he would terrorize their neighborhood near Little Cypress Creek.

"Every time my niece would go outside, she would get attacked," Rumsey said. The bird was a bundle of peacock hell. He would jump down from the roof onto the niece whenever she left the house, scratch her and chase her to her car.

Rumsey did everything: she called the humane society, a bird sanctuary and animal control, but nobody would do a thing. When she complained to the owner, he said, "Well, just shoot it."

At last, in February Rumsey took a stand: She called the sheriff's office to come get Meanie. When the deputy arrived, she says, he was too scared of the peacock strutting around his car to get out.

Rumsey said the deputy asked if Meanie would attack him.

"Probably," she said.

Then, as Rumsey stood by the car, the peacock attacked her.

The deputy rolled down his window, reached through it and tasered the bird -- twice. It wasn't even fazed.

About an hour later, the bird's owner came home. He assessed the situation, then got out his shotgun.

The saga of Meanie, the outlaw peacock, ended there.

Like screaming cats

Other Houstonians have different issues with resident peacocks. They complain that the birds poop everywhere. They say that the birds disturb an otherwise peaceful neighborhood with calls that sound like screaming cats or car horns. (Brooks says the not-so-pleasant sounds are either mating or territorial calls.)

In one Memorial-area community, residents have set up a box with flyers asking people to stop feeding the peafowl. "If you are feeding the peafowl," the flyer proclaims, "you are helping overpopulate the area, and we would appreciate it very much if you would stop."

Occasionally feral peacocks fight and kill each other. In a nearby neighborhood, after a body showed up on one resident's doorstep, she sent out a community-wide email to inform neighbors of options for dead-peacock removal.

Personally, I like the live ones. They're flashy bright spots in a sometimes boring life. When one crosses the road while I am on my way to work, I wait, take a few pictures and smile.