..and to think that I used to go chasing peacocks around the garden to make them shed their tail feathers.....tsk tsk.
This was many years ago when I was holidaying in Portugal. Conservation wasn't really a word then.
(Back in Palestine, by neighbors had a peacock.... I only wish the noises it made were as good as it looked especially at the crack-of-dawn.... like a wounded animal or something!
plus, it was an ugly white peacock... I mean, what's the point!?)
Yes, their cries aren't very attractive. We get a lot of humming birds here in the summer (we are almost sub-tropical: 30 - 40°C) - they are beautiful creatures, but so tiny and their wings beat so fast you can't even see them.
Got these pics off the net as I've never managed to catch them with my camera.
Some have very short tails - I think I can make out that there is one there - it's white edged. Also their wings tend to be quite long compared with their bodies so I think in that shot the wing is hiding the tail.
P.S. Hummingbirds are unique in that they can fly in all directions, including backwards, and can hover totally motionless, except for their wings, of course.