Magnolia Park Peacocks

We spent our first week back in the Orlando area at an Orange County park we hadn't visited before - Magnolia Park.  This park had a small campground that, unlike the other parks we've visited in Orange County, was immediately connected to the main day use area.  This was pretty cool because the main park was a central pond and green area surrounded by a paved circular road that was excellent for biking.

Magnolia Park campsite

The coolest thing about this park though...was the peafowl!!  There were 5 peacocks and 3 peahens.  They were pretty tame and quite unafraid of humans.  We learned some cool things...first, peacocks can fly a little bit.  They routinely flutter up onto fence posts, rooftops, or (most surprisingly!) the tops of really tall trees!  We discovered the latter when walking around at dusk...we heard their loud calls and couldn't see them anywhere on the ground, and finally discovered a peacock in a tree!  We searched around and found all of them roosting for the night in different trees.  The other interesting observation was that the peacocks kept mostly to themselves, occasionally following the peahens, but the peahens ALWAYS stuck together, even roosting at night.  I hope you'll forgive a huge slew of pictures here...they were just so photogenic!!

Ok this isn't a peacock...this was the resident alligator in the 
park's pond.  I think he was about 3 feet long.

Peahens on top of our neighbors' RV!

I just thought this was pretty

This looked like a cape to me

Too windy to be standing up!  We saw a couple of peacocks in 
the wind a couple times and the wind would catch their tail 
feathers and drag them in a bit of a circle.

This was the first time we saw a 
peacock off the ground, I was so
surprised!

No fear!

This was the second time we saw him
off the ground...even higher!

All the ladies on the trucks and the gentleman on the picnic
table on the background.

This peacock was trying to show off

This peacock was very interested in our car.  

So tall!  This was the only peacock in
a tree we caught on camera (because it
was daytime and not dusk and on a
branch without leaves), and he was 
perched much lower than the ones we 
saw at dusk

Close-up of the same peacock

Not sure how well this will come out...this peacock attacked this
car!!  The car was approaching very slowly, stopping a lot, and
the peacock rushed it a couple times (what I was trying to catch)
and then ended up actually jumping up and attacking the car with
its beak and claws (what I actually caught)!!  No peacocks
were harmed in the capturing of this photo.  We read that
peacocks do this because they see their reflection in the car's surface.

We spent a LOT of time 'peacock hunting' at all times of day, walking and biking around the park.  The main thing I had hoped to do here was visit Lake Apopka and the Lake Apopka bike trail across the street...but the small park there and the bike trail were closed due to construction.  We'll have to try again next year I guess!  We spent the rest of our time exploring lots of different RV parks in the area as we think about places we might want to spend time next winter (see point #8 on my previous post).