Blake and Miranda – the peacock couple – are on the run

Blake and Miranda are running around Sandy Run.

Oh no, not that Blake and Miranda – apparently the country music stars are busted up like a bunch of firewood.

But Blake, a male peacock with fancy tail feathers and Miranda, his lovely lady, have been on the loose for the past two weeks, strutting their stuff somewhere in the rural environs of the crossroads community just south of Columbia.

“I’m just heart broken,” said Bridgett Addy, who has cared for the pair from the time they were about 2 months old.

“I love peacocks and Blake and Miranda are my babies. A dog got in their pen and frightened them away.”

The good news is that the peacocks were sighted by a teacher who works at Sandy Run School earlier this week. Blake and Miranda were seen near Highway 21, in a field between Valley Ridge Road and Prevatte Road.

“That’s a great relief,” Ms. Addy said. “They are still alive, now, just to find them!”

Addy lives on a 155-acre farm and she and her daughter, Rebekah, have scoured the property in the family four-wheeler. They’ve hunted for Blake and Miranda at night, when the pair is most likely to be roosting in a tree. They’ve gone door-to-door.

And they’ve posted signs around Sandy Run.

A “LOST PEACOCKS” notice got my attention, posted on the glass door of a gas station alongside another sign about not wearing hoodies inside the establishment.

But who cares about hoodies when the hope is that Blake and Miranda are alive and well, albeit a little addled and anxious to be home?

Addy said her beloved birds, members of the turkey family, would be able to survive in the wild. The still have their leg spurs and their wings are not clipped so they can fly well enough to get away from danger and into the safety of trees branches.

They can live off the land – eating “insects, bugs and lizards.”

And they may return to their roots rather than go it alone in the Calhoun County countryside.

“If Blake and Miranda come into contact with a group of wild turkeys, they are going to flock with them.”

And unlike the other Blake and Miranda, Addy said her peacocks are birds of a feather and will stick together.

“They don’t like to be separated.”

Addy said Blake sports a four-foot “train,” the spectacular tail feathers peacocks are known for, and she said both peacocks are “about the size of a full-grown turkey.”

“Blake is shy and timid, but he likes to be in control. They’re both real curious. Miranda is laid back. She just goes with the flow.”

So if you have seen the peacocks, please call Addy at (803) 479-2963.

And if you happen upon them, be prepared for the noise they make – “a high-pitched,” “hollering and carrying on” kind of sound. Ms. Addy also said it would be helpful to throw some grain or “just plain ole” bread on the ground because they will “stay around and eat that.”

“Blake and Miranda mean so much to me. People love their dogs; I love my peacocks. I’m thinking they are lost somewhere in the woods. I go to sleep at night thinking about them and I wake up with them being the first thing on my mind.”

This story was originally published January 14, 2016 at 5:55 PM.