Daniela Scillieri: Visiting the Peacocks

Daniela Scillieri lives and works in Austin, Texas, and is a student at Austin Community College, one of the busiest institutions of higher learning in Central Texas. Her work experience includes sales, marketing, administrative work, and promotional modeling.

Daniela Scillieri likes to show visitors to Austin the Mayfield Park peacocks. Peacocks, she says, have been at Mayfield Park since 1935. The park itself originated as a private retreat for a prominent politician more than one hundred years ago. The retreat eventually passed to the hands of his daughter and her husband, an Austin doctor. Friends gave them a pair of peacocks for Christmas one year, and they liked them so much they began to add more and more to what became a growing flock. Most of the peacocks at Mayfield Park today are descendants of the original stock.

Two dozen or so peacocks wander the park area freely, and serve as greeters to park visitors. Daniela Scillieri finds them amazing and beautiful. She says to look for them in the park's trees, on the rooftops, lying in the gardens, or just wandering the grounds.

Daniela Scillieri says it is extremely important for motorists to drive carefully near this parkland. Since the Mayfield peafowl roam the area freely, they can sometimes get out, and wander onto West 35th Street. Occasionally, peacocks are killed by cars driving along the road.

Volunteers feed the peafowl high quality food every day in the late afternoon or evenings. The Mayfield Park caretakers also feed the peacocks. Whenever she takes visitors to Mayfield Park, Daniela Scillieri reminds them not to feed the peacocks. It might seem like a fun thing to do, she says, but it isn't necessary and is discouraged.