Peacocks are actually brown in color. Their famous delightful Technicolor effects which led them to be adopted for years as a trademark for NBC color television broadcasts actually are generated by thousands of microscopic indentations in the feathers which are covered with thin layers called lamellae. When viewed as a whole, these produce interference patterns in the reflected light and the creation of the gorgeous iridescent hues of the feathers. This phenomenon is shared by certain other birds such as hummingbirds and most blue-hued birds as well as with some butterflies and moths and a few other things in nature.
If you ground up feathers from one of these birds and broke up the lamellae patterns, you would end up with a drab earth-colored paste.
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