AN uninvited peacock who took up squatters' rights in a Sheepstor garden recently has been returned to his rightful owners.
Gulliver appeared in Betty Palmer's garden several weeks ago and showed no inclination to leave.
After an appeal for information in the Times, the noisy peacock has been taken back to his home at Chelfham Senior School near Tavistock.
Sue Anderson, animal husbandry tutor at the school, said: 'We are thrilled to bits. He went missing at Easter, after we'd paid an awful lot of money for him.
'We had to send up to Surrey to a guy who breeds them — he cost nearly £70, including the transport.'
Sue said the students at Chelfham have had peahens for some time but unfortunately the only eggs ever to hatch peacocks were taken by a fox.
The students had been raising money to buy a peacock by rearing and selling ducklings, goslings and rats.
'We kept him in for eight weeks and he was only out a few weeks when off he went,' said Sue.
'In India they fly all over the place but stay in fairly small territories. The students were really sad when he went because he was so beautiful, they were so desperate to have a cock and all their hard work went to waste.'
The fly-away peacock was eventually caught last Saturday.
Sue said that with the aid of a large dog crate and some carefully chosen tasty morsels, Gulliver was recaptured without incident.
'It was dead easy, he was quite easily fooled,' she said.
For the moment, the bird is being kept at Sue's house while a large aviary is being built for him at Chelfham.
'He's in safe custody and on remand at the moment, until his aviary is built,' said Sue. 'He seems fine, none the worse for his ordeal.'