Watch a Rare, White Peacock Strut Its Stuff and Pose for a Photographer

Everything about this video is beautiful. The setting next to a glorious Italian lake, the lovely gardens and the most gorgeous white peacock. It’s no wonder that there is a photographer trying to capture the image – and this bird is perfectly happy to pose. When you are this stunning, why wouldn’t you?

Watch an Albino Peacock Strut His Stuff Below!

Rare White Peacocks

Peacocks are highly recognizable and unique birds. They have a huge fan of iridescent feathers that create a magnificent display. They are kept as exotic pets in many parts of the world and the most striking of these birds are totally white.

Most white peacocks, however, are not albinos. Albino animals have cells that cannot produce melanin – this is the pigment that colors skin, hair, eyes and scales. Albinism is a genetic condition and both parents have to carry a certain genetic mutation for the condition to be expressed in the offspring. Albino animals can appear to be white or pink and have pink eyes.

These white peacocks have leucism. This is a partial loss of pigmentation. If you look closely at the video, you will see that this peacock does not have pink eyes – they are dark.

Being a very pale color when you live in a green habitat is not great news. All-white animals cannot blend into the background and this makes them stand out. It makes them an easy target for predators and many do not survive. Because the peacocks in this video are pets, that is not something that they need to be so concerned about.

All About Peacocks

Peacocks are incredible animals! Their correct name is peafowl and they are actually a large, crested pheasant that is native to parts of Asia and the Congo. The males are actually ‘peacocks’ and the females are ‘peahens’. A group of peafowl are called a muster or a bevy.

It is the male of the species that has the most spectacular display of feathers. Their chest is a startling blue and their magnificent tail feathers can reach five feet across. When their tail feathers are displayed, they fan out into a huge array of color.

Their feathers have green circles usually with bright blue centers and they can often change color as the light bounces off them in different directions. Female peahens are not blessed with such brightly colored feathers, as is the case many other species of bird!

The photo featured at the top of this post is © iStock.com/simona flamigni