NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- An escaped peacock flew back to the Bronx Zoo on Thursday morning, hours after the bird took to the streets, attacking a man and roosting in a park tree to the wonderment of onlookers.
The peacock, who residents named "Raul" and also referred to as "the beauty," took wing from his overnight perch at Vidalia Park in West Farms around 10:45 a.m.
The two-block journey back to the zoo—which involved Raul going between trees and rooftops—took about a half-hour. Video shows the moment he flew from a building and back into the zoo to the cheers of people on the ground.
"The peacock who spent last night in a tree outside the Bronx Zoo flew back onto zoo grounds under his own initiative at 11:19 a.m.," the zoo said in a statement.
"We kept an eye on the bird this morning as he started to move around at dawn and fully expected him to return to the 200 as he did," the statement continued. "We had confidence in our knowledge of bird behavior to predict how he would behave if given the chance to do so without interference. We were confident in our staffs' ability to handle."
In another statement earlier Thursday, the zoo also predicted the peacock would ultimately come home on his own, although it expressed concern that all the media attention may hamper the return flight.
The 911 calls first came in around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday: A peacock was on the loose, dashing through the streets in a frenzied scene.
A man who gave his name as Mike told Citizen App that he and others tried to corner the animal after it had been roaming the streets around Vidalia Park.
"It just started running up the hill towards traffic, and so you know we had to try to keep the bird safe, so we chased him. I trapped him inside the gate," he said. "He got tired of the gate, and then he tried to peck me. He grabbed my pants."
"Raul wasn't having it," Chris Gutter told WABC. "Raul flew over the parking lot gate, started coming down here, he started to chase him over here. And then I guess Mike got too close to Raul. Raul took a peck at him."
He suffered a minor injury and was treated at the scene, the FDNY said.
After the attack, the wayward peacock went about 12 feet up the tree at Vidalia Park and spent the night there. It was still in the tree when the sun rose Thursday. Word of the bird spread fast among New Yorkers.
"There's a peacock in the tree," a woman said at 8 a.m. "That's why all the newspeople are here."
"Daddy, look, a peacock," a girl told her father.
The tree is at E. 180th Street and Vyse Avenue, just two blocks from the Bronx Zoo.
Before his return, the zoo said in a statement Thursday morning that the bird was likely one of its "free roaming" peafowl.
"The Bronx Zoo has free roaming peafowl that live on the grounds," the zoo said. "The birds roost in trees at night."
The incident is reminiscent of Flaco the owl, who escaped from the Central Park Zoo earlier this year and surprised everyone by eluding capture and managing to survive outside of captivity. He's still living in the park.
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