Gus and the Peacocks

Gus is an Australian cattle dog – the size of a retriever, his ears are prominent triangles that are always up and listening, and his coat of short hair is mostly black with patches of white. He has a protective streak and lots of energy, but when he isn’t herding Texas longhorns, he becomes a bit mischievous and wanders around the ranch looking for things to do. He wants to be friendly, but if he doesn’t know you, he tends to be suspicious.

I met Gus on a warm summer afternoon in the middle of June. He lives at the Deer Springs Ranch in Southern Utah where I was spending a couple of weeks teaching a class about pollinators. The ranch covers several acres in beautiful red rock country with pinyon pines and Utah junipers growing abundantly on the hillsides. The Pink Cliffs of Bryce Canyon National Park can be seen off to the north and the many slot canyons of Grand Staircase National Monument extend eastward for miles.

Being the middle of June, there are all kinds of wildflowers in the desert. Many are in full bloom. Just north of the ranch, globe mallows line a dirt road with little Diadasia bees eagerly feeding from their orange blooms. The bees are actively building chimney-like turrets from the road. They make them to keep out predatory velvet ants and other predators. They look like little candy canes colored brown.

Lupines the size of small bushes are full of blue flowers. They are being visited by leaf-cutter bees with their specially adapted abdominal hairs that are bright yellow with pollen. Prickly poppies are feeding big black carpenter bees and cicadas are noisomely buzzing across the valley.

The ranch exists because of a trickle of water that ribbons along a narrow wash. It is lined with sedges and is home to millions of little biting gnats (ceratopogonids, also called no-see-ums). I have duct tape wrapped around my pant legs to keep them from biting my ankles. At night we spent an hour watching little tadpoles and a couple of frogs despite the flies.

Above the wash cottonwoods and elm trees provide shade for the ranch house and guest cabins. There are chickens, horses and pigs in their pens and a handful of noisy peacocks that pierce the air with stentorian calls at odd hours of the day and night. Gus watches over all of these with his no-nonsense poise.

One evening while eating dinner on the porch after a busy day of watching bees, we heard a racket near one of the large elms in the back yard. A Western Kingbird, the size of a robin, was diving and screaming at two peacocks. Its feathers were a-fluff in full combat display. We soon noticed the cause of its concern. One of its nestlings, while working its new flight muscles, had fallen from the nest, and was hiding in the grass. The peacocks were hoping to get a bit of protein.

At first, they were tentative. After all, kingbirds can be loud and annoying for no apparent reason. When they are trying to protect their offspring, they are fully raucous. But step by step the peacocks were slowly figuring out that the kingbird wasn’t about to hurt them. And so, their steps became bolder. It seemed inevitable that they would be eating the baby bird by turns.

Several of us were on the porch some thirty feet away transfixed by the developments. We couldn’t believe that such beautiful blue birds would want to eat such a helpless creature. Well, some of us couldn’t believe it. The evening before, one of the peacocks had landed on the cabin porch where I was getting ready for bed and began asking for a handouts. I became quite aware that this bird was an opportunist and would eat all sorts of things.

Even so, I was caught up in the drama and wanted the little bird to be saved, while at the same time, knowing that this natural interaction needed to play itself out. Maybe that was the biologist in me. It was also a cop-out. Peacock are not native birds. They had less of a right to be there than the kingbirds.

Gus, on the other hand, was not so conflicted. When the nestling was within seconds of being gobbled up, he suddenly emerged from the shadows of a shrub and sprinted towards the peacocks. Was he defending the baby bird or did he just want to eat it all by himself? It all became apparent soon enough. Without even a growl – but with head down and with an alpha predator’s determination, he charged right at the peacocks and sent them flying – not something you see every day from these bulky birds that prefer to walk.

When he was done, he walked right back to the shadows and within inches of the fallen bird. Everyone on the porch began cheering the dog and chanting his name. But Gus, being the modest sort, just wagged his tail and disappeared. All part of a day’s work it seemed.