THERE has been a preponderance of peacock tales in The Northern Echo this week.

A pair of peacocks has been lost and re-united in Ramshaw, near Bishop Auckland, and another pair has been captured in Catterick after jumping on cars.

There have been reports of pairs of peacocks on the loose from Northallerton up to Crook.

There's clearly a pandemic of peacocks. Back in August, there was an outbreak in our back garden when a pair of them turned up out of the blue. Our two pet chickens shouted themselves hoarse in dismay.

The peacocks - juvenile males on their first adventure away from home - lowered their long, dinosaur necks and menacingly rammed their sharp hooked beaks into the little birds' faces. Quickly a pecking order was agreed upon. The chickens surrendered all of their food and all of their sunny spots, and in return, the peacocks removed their beaks from the little birds' faces.

So proud were the peacocks of their overwhelming victory that they looked to assert their new-found masculinity in other ways. They discovered their tail feathers would stand on end. They fanned them out and, as proud as peacocks, displayed them to the chickens.

Heads down, bottoms up, the chickens studiously ignored them.

The peacocks turned to the blackbirds, and pranced around. The blackbirds ignored them.

The peacocks turned to the chaffinches, and pompously strutted their stuff. The chaffinches ignored them, so the peacocks turned to the squirrel. From the look on the squirrel's face, he clearly didn't have a clue what was going on, but the peacocks were pleased just to have an audience.

In fact, they were now thoroughly at home. If we dared to have a lie in, they'd noisily bounce around on the bathroom roof, demanding the chickens' breakfast. Then they found their voices, their mournful cry - like a heartbroken lover drowning in a mist-shrouded lake.

The chickens sought sanctuary in our house. The peacocks followed, and finally one of them made it around the corner into the kitchen.

An estate agent would describe our kitchen as a "galley" because there's not enough room to swing a cat. Nor to allow a peacock to flap. Not understanding the concept of doors, the peacock hurled itself at the kitchen window. It crumpled, and slumped into the sink on top of the washing up.

I was sent to rescue it. A hopeless task. If you've never tried to stop a petrified peacock's wings from beating, you've never felt power. If you've never been beneath a petrified peacock in a galley kitchen as it flaps onto the top of the mock pine units, you've never felt a downdraft. I retreated.

Instead, we carried the docile, big, fat chicken into the kitchen in the hope that it would lead the peacock out. The peacock got the willies, smashed into the breadbin and scattered the floor with crumbs. The big, fat chicken was in her element. Free food everywhere. She sat there, happily gorging herself.

We adopted plan B, which involved catching the wilder, more flighty little chicken and throwing her into the kitchen. Within minutes, it worked. From the kitchen she marched, through the dining room and out of the back door, bringing her peacock behind her.

After this kitchen calamity, the peacocks hung around for another fortnight. Then one morning there were no footsteps on the bathroom roof and no lovelorn cries on the breeze. They were gone - to terrorize some other neighbourhood.