Escapees

Isn't she pretty? She is a peahen (the female counterpart to a peacock) who lives at the Bronx Zoo, where she is allowed to roam free on the grounds. But she decided to walk the streets last week and strutted her stuff (1st image) for a day and a night before she was captured. "Usually they wander back on their own. They want to be at the zoo. There's lots of food and less traffic," said Nancy Clum, the zoo's curator of ornithology. The bird jaywalked, perched on top of a parked van on Morris Park Avenue, and hung out near the E. 180th St. subway station. After the peahen was corralled in a garage at an undisclosed location, zoo director James J. Breheny clarified, “We will keep our tradition of free-roaming peafowl at the Bronx Zoo. We are confident that after this peahen’s recent adventure, she won’t want to wander from her home at the zoo.”

This follows the escape of a venomous Egyptian cobra (2nd image) in March. Breheny held a press conference to announce that the snake had been found, after a week on the lam, coiled near a "labyrinth of pipes" in a nonpublic area of the zoo’s Reptile House. Public interest in the snake led the zoo to hold a naming contest, which drew more than 33,000 entries, and prompted the newly-dubbed "Mia" to open her own Twitter account. Her May 10th remark to her fellow escapee:

"Seriously, peacock!? We agreed we'd go tomorrow at dawn!"