Albert, the white peacock of Boulder Creek, a symbol of resilience and peace, memorialized in downtown mural

If they hadn’t see him with their own eyes, the folks who live in the upper forests of Boulder Creek would have been skeptical he really existed. He must have been a myth, a folktale.

Who could imagine an ethereal white peacock, in all its glorious, glistening plumage, would roam freely through the town tucked deep in the Santa Cruz Mountains, among the old trailers and cabins of the Redwood Resort RV park and up to the Foster’s Freeze on Highway 9?

“It was almost like he was a ghost,” said Cindy Rech, sitting at Joe’s Bar downtown. “And then they would see him and say, ‘Oh, he is for real!’”

For more than 30 years, the rare white peacock that the townsfolk came to call Albert belonged to no one and everyone. He roosted in the redwoods and napped in backyard flowerbeds. Neighbors fed him trays of chicken scratch and filled bowls with water.

Over the years, he survived all manner of predators and speeding vehicles. Vague accounts of a kidnapping a decade ago, ending with clipped tail feathers and a wounding by a BB gun, added to the lore. In 2020, when photographs captured him emerging from the smoky haze of the CZU fire that destroyed more than 900 homes, with his six feet of tail feathers dragging through the ashes covering Highway 9, his legend only grew. Animal Planet dedicated a segment to him. People magazine wrote about him. A Santa Clara University English professor wrote a children’s tale about how Albert saved the town from the inferno.

But last November, he couldn’t fend off what appeared to be a mountain lion attack. A post on the Boulder Creek Neighbors Facebook page shared the tragic news.

“It’s a sad day for our little town,” Kevin Foster wrote. “RIP Albert.”

Last Saturday, after a fundraising campaign raised $10,000 in a week, the community gathered on a grassy lot on Boulder Creek’s main street, Highway 9, for the unveiling of a mural dedicated to Albert on the full two-story broad side of Jenna Sue’s Cafe. Santa Cruz artist Yeshe Jackson mixed into the white paint finely scissored bits of Albert’s molted feathers collected by neighbors, a reliquary encased in paint.

“He was just an inspirational beacon of light, a blessing if you were lucky enough to see him,” Foster said. “I’m not sure what they say about white peacocks, but I think they bring some type of good karma.”

Just how Albert ended up living in and around the Redwood Resort RV Park and Campground is a little uncertain. Frank and Trish Hamer, who have lived in a shingled bungalow near the entrance of the resort for 41 years, disagree about whether he flew in from across the San Lorenzo River behind them or down from the mountain where different families raised peacocks decades ago.

Albert was not an albino. He had brown eyes, not the tell-tale pink. He was leucistic — bred to carry the genetic mutation of his parents that inhibits the production of melanin that gives vibrant colors to peacock feathers.

Something about him also tapped into the spirit of Boulder Creek, a mountain town of 5,000 people outside of Silicon Valley where locals pride themselves on their independence and resourcefulness.

“He was just so dear,” said Trish Hamer, who enjoyed Albert’s frequent visits to her garden as she pulled weeds around her irises. “When we heard the news, oh, I still cry. I miss my garden buddy.”

Near the back of the RV park, Albert would show up most mornings for breakfast at Jesse Nolen’s trailer. Nolen lost his job as a camp host when the CZU fire shut down Big Basin State Park and now cares for his wife full time. With Albert’s favorite seeded oat bread, he’d sit in his camp chair with Albert at his feet and feed him by hand.

“We’d just sit there and enjoy the sunrise,” Nolen said. “Nobody owned him. He was just my friend.”

The giant bird could be aggressive, however. His high-pitched screech “sounded like a woman screaming in the night,” said Dean Bull, who often encountered him on his 5-mile walks across town, and when Albert unfurled his tremendous fan of feathers, it released a cascading rumble.

“He would always turn his butt to me and, like, twerk.” Bull said. “Then he would like, peek around his tail to see if I was still there.”

During the 2020 fires, Foster and his son, Steven, attempted to wrangle Albert into their work truck, but “with the tail feathers draped six feet out the window, they would have just broken off if we tried to drive off with him.”

 

Locals made calls to the Boulder Creek fire department to keep a watch out for him. It wasn’t Chief Mark Bingham’s first priority, but as he was driving his engine back into town one day, his sirens blaring, he slammed on the brakes. The engine’s Code 3 red and white lights reflected off Albert’s fully-plumed, radiating feathers.

“You could barely see anywhere, and he just appeared in the smoke,” Bingham said. “He was trying to hold Highway 9 in patrol.”

The chief hates to imagine if he didn’t stop in time.

“We would have gone from a hero to zero pretty quick,” Bingham said.

Albert met his end four years later at the back of the RV park. Frank Hamer said a resident heard a commotion out the window of his trailer around dusk, “looked out and he could see this mountain lion going over the fence with Albert.”

The residents of Boulder Creek find some solace that Albert lived longer than most peacocks in the wild or in captivity.

He will be remembered in the 1,200-square-foot mural on the side of Jenna Sue’s downtown, and in the 3-foot peacock sculpture on display at the local library. UC Santa Cruz art professor Beth Stephens and her partner, Annie Sprinkle, who live across from the Hamers, are finishing a documentary about him.

“Albert was a unicorn trapped in a peacock body, you know? I mean, just magically magical,” Stephens said. “In this very imperfect life, there was Albert. Here’s this point of peaceful power and hope.”