You don’t often get a chance to be ‘up close and personal’ with a peacock; most of the time you have to keep your distance and hope for a show of feathers.
But this time was different, and it really had nothing to do with luck. Out of the picture, and just to the right, a family with a young child were having a picnic lunch on the grounds of Malahide Castle, near Dublin.
The girl and the peacock bonded over lunch, that is, over small bits of food the two-year-old kept tossing past the end of the family’s checkered blanket, giving me the opportunity for these shots.