‘Pandemic peacock’ which became symbol of hope during lockdown is killed by foxes

Rumours of bird’s survival caused by confusion with lookalike, says local headteacher

Kevin was found dead on Sunday (Yardley Primary School)

A peacock which brought joy to a community in east London during the coronavirus lockdown has been found dead, apparently killed by foxes.

Kevin the peacock appeared at Yardley primary school in Chingford last year and made himself at home, and was a regular sight in gardens and on roofs around the neighbourhood.

It tended to sleep in a tree by the school’s junior playground, headmaster Chris Evans told The Independent.

However, on Sunday Kevin’s remains were found by the Yardley caretaker after the bird was seen in distress some hours prior, and residents reported on Facebook that they had heard significant fox activity in recent days.

Mr Evans said rumours on social media about Kevin’s survival were unfounded. “There’s some confusion in that there were two peacocks,” living locally, he said.

The striking blue bird has been laid to rest in the caretaker’s garden.

Yardley intends to immortalise Kevin in the logo of its PE kit, and a mosaic by a local artist is also planned.

Mr Evans, who has worked at Yardley for 18 years in total, said “the school will be a much quieter and less colourful place without him” and that the bird “gave us something positive to focus on while everything else was doom and gloom”.

Describing Kevin’s mysterious arrival, Mr Evans told The Independent: “We will never know where he came from, he just turned up at the start of the first lockdown. He just sort of moved into the school and adopted us.

“We were still open for key workers’ children and a couple of people had told me about him. The local residents were getting quite annoyed about his 4am dawn chorus.

“I came in and he was on top of the school building, like the king of the castle.

“Most mornings he would go to the caretaker’s house for something to eat.

“He’s been in the school, I’ve had to chase him out of classrooms. The caretaker would send me pictures of him running around the hallways.”

Staff are taking the view that Kevin arrived to help carry the community through the pandemic at its start, and has left them now that the way out is becoming clear, Mr Evans added.

There had been a suggestion locally that Kevin and the other peacock were connected to Teddy Sheringham, the former Premier League and England footballer, but this is not believed to be the case.