January 16, 2012, Day 16 of my 365 Days of Photographs

Let me start out by saying, this is not a great picture! However, today I had an adventure, so I am going to tell a little story, and this picture goes with the story. This picture shows a couple of our guinea fowl. Guineas are crazy, flighty, noisy and annoying birds. However, I dearly love them. We had some many years ago, and then I couldn't find them again for a long time. Last spring we got a bunch of tiny newborn chicks and raised them. Now they live in a chicken coop in our yard. When the weather is nice, they have an outdoor area in the coop, but when it is nasty cold, like right now, I keep them locked up in the indoor part. Today when I went out to feed them, I opened the door to the inside area, and I spooked them. Did I mention that they are very flighty? Anyway, I thought one flew over my head and got out, but I didn't see any sign of it, so I went on with my chores. However, I kept hearing the distinctive sound of a guinea, and it wasn't coming from inside the coop. Finally, I went back over to look, and sure enough, there he was on top of Grandpa Hatch's little house. Hmmm, how to get him. "Good thing we have a net for catching chickens," I thought, "this will be easy." Wow, talk about famous last words. When I got close to him with the net, he took off flying. Now these birds live in a pen that doesn't give them the opportunity to fly, so you wouldn't think he would have the strength to go very far, but he flew way back to where the hay bales are and landed on top of them. The hay bales are in where my big dogs live, so I was a bit concerned that if he got down too low the dogs would go after him. Well, I got out there and tried once more to catch him with my net, but he flew away again. He headed back in the direction of the coop, but I guess by now his unexercised wings were getting tired, and he smacked into the back of another chicken coop and landed on the ground. Now you have to understand I can't just run over to where he is. We have electric fences, gates and a few other obstacles I had to go through to get to him. By the time I got to where he was, he must have been getting his second wind. He didn't have enough energy to fly, but he took off under fences, around posts, through the electric fence and out with the cows. All this time I was chasing after him, but I could not get close enough to snag him with the net. Finally, he went into our garden spot. There are some tall weeds growing there, and he hunkered down in them. I think his thoughts were that I couldn't see him. Lucky for me I could. I calmly walked up to him, as calm as you can be when you are out of breath from chasing a critter for that long, and set the net on top of him. Imagine his surprise to find that he was captured! Anyway, I got him back to the coop, and he seems no worse for wear. And that explains my choice of pictures for today. I actually took this picture after that fiasco, but I can't guarantee that either of those birds is the escape artist!