A picture is worth more than 1,000 words. So I will let you guys to check it out yourselves.
Once upon a time, I went by a peacock farm. The owner told us the colorful ones were the male, and all the white ones were female. The females were not for sale at the time for breading purposes, and the males were just $45 each! I almost bought one. Think about all the looks (not in a bad way) i might get by walking a peacock on the sidewalk?
How awesome ! I hope they find the owners of this poor lost bird. I think he must have been badly frightened to get so far away from home that he could not find his way back home.
When I lived out in the country in Western Washington, we had a peacock, and after having him confined for about a week while he learned where he lived; we were able to just leave him loose, and he never left the property. He would fly up into one of the tall pine trees at night to roost, and during the day, he strolled around as he patrolled the property. If any strangers came, he made kind of a screeching noise.
Sometimes, he would show off and spread his magnificent tail feathers out as he strutted around.
As for the white ones being female, that is not the case. There are actually white peacocks, and both the male and female are white. The females (peahens) can be identified because they do not have the long tailfeathers like the peacock has. Most peahens are kind of a grayish-brown in color, except for the white ones, of course.
Thor, I think that you would enjoy having a peacock as a pet if you have room for them to live outside like we did . They definitely are not going to be like a parrot or other house bird, and need a lot of room, but basically, they are an intelligent and friendly bird, and will also do a great job of alerting you of any intruders.
You can keep just one peacock and they will do fine; but they really enjoy company. The one you posted the picture of probably just wanted to see some other birds, and flew over to where the chickens were. We had chickens and ducks already, since we lived out in the country; so Peke had a lot of company, which he faithfully guarded and protected.
They can kind of be leash trained (you mentioned taking one for a walk). We used soft clothesline rope, and tied it around his leg, just above the foot, and then let him drag it around until he got used to the rope following him. Then we tied the rope to a small tree. After trying to walk or fly away and realizing that he couldn't, we had a peacock that was trained to tie out.
I never tried to take Peke for walks (we just wanted him to learn where he lived with out being caged up); but I think that he would have also learned to walk along with the rope if we had tried to teach him to do that.