You can imagine how happy we were to see this.
Unbeknown to us, this guineafowl saw that we were chucking out peanuts for the squirrels on the sidewalk.
Nature has so many surprises, and this was a great one. We have been feeding the squirrels and the doves since we moved in here and in the 3 years that we live here, the guinea fowls never came near us. They are wild birds after all, and until now I could only get them on the zoom of my camera. But all of this changed so suddenly, that it caught us totally off guard. Just imagine meeting these birds right on close up.
So, this time the fowl would not pass, but instead it decided to come and eat the nuts of the squirrels on the sidewalk.
There! You can see the nut in its beak.
Now see what happened the next day.
Wow! The guinea came walking up in our driveway!
It started eating the squirrels' afternoon feed.
Then another one rocked up.
This one had a punk rocker hairstyle :)
Shame, a squirrel arrived, and the pair of guineas told it to go away.
The squirrel looked at me for help, but there was no way that I could chase the fowls away.
The squirrel decided to leave under the watchful eye of the punk rocker :)
And so, it was a lovely surprise, but it had to be a one off, as a danger was that soon many more guinea fowls would arrive. Not only can we not afford that, as it would mean a big spend on the peanuts, but it would also upset the rhythm that we built up over time with the squirrels. They bring their babies here every breeding season, and a crowd of guineas would certainly scare the squirrels away.
Not that I wanted to, but the next time that the fowls arrived, I had to chase them away. Since then, they haven't arrived again, and besides there is way more than enough for them to eat at the river. Maybe the fowls just wanted to put something extra on their menu, but our nature restaurant at the sidewalk and the garden has a right of admissions policy. Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
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