Peacock’s month-long escapade ends with a twist in the tale for Bellarine’s Ket Baker

A Bellarine bakery’s peacock spent four weeks on the run looking for love but now three birds call the area home.

A peacock who spent four weeks on the run looking for love on the Bellarine Peninsula has finally found his way home in a remarkable tale with a bonus bird and a Taiwanese twist.

The peacock, one of three now at Wallington artisan bakery Ket Baker, flew the coup just before Christmas.

The disappearance came at the worst possible time, according to owner Miek Paulus.

“We were incredibly busy … it was all very hectic,” Ms Paulus said.

The family have collected quite the menagerie on their two-hectare property, with the pair of peacocks the most recent addition.

“The intention is to just let them roam free … we’ve got some goats, we’ve got chickens, it’d be nice if we just have some peacocks roaming around for our customers,” Ms Paulus said.

12-01-2023 Miek Paulus from Ket Bakery in Wallington lost one of her Peacocks and got two back. Picture: Brad Fleet

The duo are a father and son, and while dad was content to roam around with the chickens, the youngster had something else on his mind.

“He just got too keen to find a girl. Of course, a peacock doesn’t realise that we are trying to find girls and that it takes a bit of time,” Ms Paulus, who has been on the hunt for some peahens, said.

When the young peacock took flight, Ms Paulus reached out via Instagram to help find the missing bird but no one could help.

“We just couldn’t find him. Christmas and New Year passed by, and then it was a bit silent around the peacock story,” Ms Paulus said.

After New Year’s, Ms Paulus and her husband jetted off to Taiwan for the wedding of the bakery’s beloved former pastry chef.

“As soon as we left, somebody saw a peacock in Portarlington,” Ms Paulus said.

“I thought ‘oh, Portarlington? That’s so far away, that sounds a bit unlikely.”

Another post on social media netted a deluge of responses.

The Wallington Peacocks and got two back. Picture: Brad Fleet

“Everything became very active again. People started messaging me, ‘I saw him! I saw him!’ and of course I was in Taiwan, I had very limited reception,” Ms Paulus said.

Ms Paulus frantically tried to orchestrate a rescue operation from thousands of kilometres away.

“A woman contacted me and said he was in her garden, meanwhile a customer put a comment on one of my posts saying ‘hey, I have caught flamingoes in the wild, I’m actually quite confident to catch a bird like that,” Ms Paulus said.

“It was totally random … in half an hour the bird was caught. In the meantime, I was somewhere in Taiwan in the mountains having lunch.”

However, there was one more twist in the tale once the wandering bird had been brought back.

“I got another message from a lady saying she had my peacock in her garden,” Ms Paulus said.

“I said, ‘no that’s not possible, we just caught him’. She sent me a picture – there was another one.”

Unsure which was the original, the family ended up adopting both peacocks.

“At the moment they’re actually very happy, but there’s three boys, we need girls. I’m very much aware we need girls,” Ms Paulus said.

Ms Paulus said she was incredibly grateful to the Bellarine community for helping find the peacock.

“It proves again that people are just awesome, and very responsive in trying to help out,” she said.

Originally published as Peacock’s month-long escapade ends with a twist in the tale for Bellarine’s Ket Baker