A large white bird that has been baffling Islanders has been enjoying a daily breakfast of peanuts from the balcony of a house in Somerset Island during the past two months.

And it is has now been identified as a moluccan cockatoo that has likely escaped from captivity.

Writer Roxy Kaufmann believes the avian visitor to her home in Tranquillity Hill during the past six weeks is the same tropical-looking all-white bird that has been spotted in a number of locations across the Island during the past week.

?He?s about a foot-a-half tall and he looks a lot bigger when he is in flight,? said Mrs. Kaufmann.

?He has an exquisite very faint pink or peach breast area and under his plume.?

When the bird first started visiting Mrs. Kaufmann?s garden it came no closer than a cedar tree 10ft away from the property. But as it felt safer with the environment it moved nearer until it was happy to accept peanuts given to it by Mrs. Kaufmann.

The bird has a metal ring on its right leg, indicating that it is a formerly captive bird.

Mrs. Kaufmann said: ?He looks at you sideways and when he walks along the balcony he does a ?step, step, slide? movement like a dance.?

The bird comes each morning for its peanut feed and also sometimes pays a visit in the late afternoon.

Last weekend when storm force winds and rain lashed the Island the bird vanished for a day or two before resuming its routine.

The mystery of the large, white bird was sparked earlier this week by Laura Lee who spotted an unusual white bird perched outside her home in Bailey?s Bay, Hamilton Parish.

It was thought the bird might be a sulphur-crested cockatoo known to fly free in the nearby area of Blue Hole Hill. But a few days later another sighting of an unidentified large white bird was made by Dr. Clarence Terceria as he drove along Sound View Road, Sandys. But following the latest description of the bird, St. George?s Mayor E. Michael Jones has told he believes it is a moluccan cockatoo, like the one he has as a pet.

?With the ring on its leg it sounds like it has been hand-raised and with the salmon-coloured feathers I?d say it is a moluccan cockatoo. They are quite large birds, like a small chicken in size,? he said.

But where the bird has come from remains a mystery.