From the Archives: Peacock at Grantville, VIC

I couldn't help but choose this wonderful photo that I took of a peacock on full display, with its plumage extended and filling the frame of the shot, as the first photo to place on my new blog, Haritography.com!

Back in January 2020, we were driving towards Philip Island for our summer family vacation, when we decided to stop by at the Maru Koala and Animal Park, in Grantville, VIC. It's a lovely family-oriented animal park, and the kids loved interacting with animals such as wallabies and the llamas, even if they didn't want anything to do with you – one actually spat in our faces. After touring the park, listening to the zookeepers educate us all on the daily habits of the koala and having a bite to eat, we decided to get back on the road again to reach our holiday destination.

However, on the way out of the park, this beautiful specimen of a male peacock stepped into our path and started to fan out his tail feathers, staring intently at all four of us, stopped in our tracks. This peacock wanted to make sure that we did not miss the main attraction. While he was shimmering his tail feathers and stepping side to side, I grabbed my Nikon D500 and Nikkor 16-80mm f/2.8-4 ED VR lens, and took approximately 30 photos of this beautiful display.

At the time, with the midday sun beating down on us, I wasn't in a good place to review the photos at the car, as the back screen of the D500 doesn't do well in direct sunlight. I had to wait until I got home and imported my photos into Adobe Lghtroom CC, before I saw these, dare I say, stunning photos of our gentlemanly peacock here.

I'm glad I took these photos, they captured a happy family memory for us. So much so, that I decided as the first of my photographs to ever be printed, I adjusted the settings on this image you see above, had it printed to canvas and I have it hung proudly on my living room wall. Every time I walk past my living room, I see this electric blue peacock with its tail feathers spread out, and it reminds me of the demonstration that he did for us just as we were about to leave.