Pretty. Badass.

There's a 1,000 year-old Indian Mound in my neighborhood that historians say the Tocabaga Indians spent a few hundred years building from discarded clam and oyster shells. The mound is 20-feet high and rests on the waterfront. It's shaded by sighing oaks whose arms are draped with showers of Spanish moss festooned with tiny air plants. From a distance the plants look like bows decorating a girl's long hair.

A park has risen around the neighborhood mound and it's protected as sacred land. It's only inhabitants are a gang of peacocks who apparently feel completely entitled to hassle whomever they choose, including some pretty testy tom cats. The peacocks also sometimes strut out into the road and nonchalantly hold traffic in both directions hostage until they grow bored and wander back over to the park. In all the years I have lived here, I have never heard of a peacock being hit by a car. And I have never seen a cat or dog prevail in a stare-down contest. As you can see in this picture, the peas get mighty peeved when one of their homies is affronted by a flea-bitten four-legger and they are quick to assemble their bad selves in an impressive show of force.