Up and Out in Beverly Hills, Peahen Perches on a Bank

Forget President Clinton’s visit to the Valley.

The real excitement on Tuesday was in Beverly Hills. Delphine was on the loose.

More than 24 hours after she flew her coop for the high living of Beverly Hills, the 35-pound peahen was still stranded on the ledge of a bank building Tuesday night.

“All I can do is hope that by some miracle tomorrow . . . she realizes there’s some greenery (on the ground) and flies down,” says her owner, Mario Mathias. If not, “They will have a 35-pound beautiful bird, dead on their sill.”

On Monday afternoon, Delphine and her peacock mate, Enrique, were frightened when someone tried to break into their aviary. They crashed through a window and swooped out.

It didn’t take long for Mathias to scoop up Enrique. (After all, that ornate tail is a lot to lug around.) But Delphine took off for Beverly Hills, a block away, where they appreciate fancy feathers.

And there she remained Tuesday night, perched nervously on the seventh floor ledge of the Bank of America building on Wilshire Boulevard. “She left two eggs behind” in the aviary, lamented Mathias, who keeps a veritable zoo in the back yard of his duplex.

“If she doesn’t come back, they’ll never be born. Enrique has no intention of sitting on them.”

Hungry, thirsty and no doubt petrified at all the fuss and the news helicopters, Delphine resisted dramatic rescue attempts by a tree trimmer who dangled by ropes from the roof of the 10-story building Tuesday afternoon.

The Beverly Hills Fire Department even showed up with ladders. But the building owners nixed that rescue plan, Mathias said, apparently concerned about liability.

“It being a bird . . . what can you say?” Mathias wondered.