jmgoyder

wings and things

Mar 26

The gentle little army of guinnea fowl

by jmgoyder

Every evening towards dusk, the guinnea fowl all march, like a funny little disorganized army, from the back paddock into the garden. Yesterday, I was sitting at one of the picnic tables relaxing, after putting the gang away for the night, and I took some photos of them coming towards me. Unlike all of the other birds they are reluctant to take bread or lettuce from my hand; they’re far too shy. So they sometimes run right up to me but when I say, “Hi Guinneas” they get scared and run away again, or else get all confused. Once again, I will let the pictures speak for themselves! Oh, and the birds in the background are the peacocks/peafowl.

Of all our birds, the guinnea fowl are Husband’s absolute favourites!

Wings

50 Comments »
Feb 26

The turkeys grow up

by jmgoyder

Our three turkeys are getting huge but, when I purchased them as chicks, I saw various of their parents so I know they may well grow even huger! I loved them when they were little and cute but now I adore their big robustness. Here is one of the Bubbles with Baby Turkey underneath the two ancient fig trees. They are the only birds who eat the figs – they eat masses of them which is probably why they are growing so fast!

It’s hard to believe they were ever this teensy!

Despite their angry looking faces, they are the friendliest of all our birds. They love to be patted and nearly jump into my lap when I bring bread out. The guinnea fowl and peacocks are much more nervous birds. Even though we have had guinnea fowl for longer than any of the others, I still can’t handfeed them or touch them. The peacocks will take food from my hand but if I try to pat them they get really jumpy so I’ve stopped trying – it doesn’t matter. The turkeys, however, will nibble my clothes for a pat!

I still miss that very first Bubble – the one we lost in the early days of our bird adventure.

Husband is coming home for the day and, apart from the guinnea fowl, the turkeys are his favourite birds. I think he’ll be quite glad to see Son too!

Wings

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Feb 9

Giggling grief

by jmgoyder

Grief is a very strange emotion because it comes and goes. One minute it is like a punch to the throat and the next minute it’s like a memory tickle. Yes, grief does giggle – well, at least mine does.

For example, I have just recovered from one of those sobbing onslaughts – you know the kind? You are cooking dinner, or on the phone to a friend, or feeding the dogs/birds/pets/whatever, and suddenly your voice stops short and you are crying and, no matter how hard you try to stop it, your crying becomes sobbing.

Okay, when this happened to me this afternoon, I went straight outside, and there were the guinnea fowl again! So my grief got the giggles!

Uncategorized Wings

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Jan 29

Enjoying the view

by jmgoyder

 On the left is Guinnea (one of our many Guinnea fowl, all named ‘Guinnea’ for the sake of convenience), and on the right is Tapper (one of our two Muscovy ducks). Now, usually these two breeds don’t associate with each other. There’s no animosity; it’s more a matter of not having anything in common.

So I thought it was quite sweet last night to see them perched together on top of one of the yards, sharing the view of the back paddock, with the sunset nuzzling a few clouds away, a gentle breeze whispering its way through the grass, a lullaby of raindrops … WAIT A MINUTE!!!

The back paddock is where that rotten fox lurks. That’s what they’re watching. They must’ve seen him/her. And, because Guinnea and Tapper have the advantage over some of the gang in the sense that they can fly, I now realise that this is actually a photo of sentry duty and has nothing whatsoever to do with a view!

Wings

8 Comments »
Jan 19

Birdplay

by jmgoyder

I love watching the birds at play. Even though they spend most of their time pecking around for food – grass, grubs and so on, each breed has its own version of fun:

The guinnea fowl love to dig themselves into any grassless patches and roll around in the dirt. They have also formed a choir and their performances are frequent (about once every hour or so). Their music is a bit of an acquired taste which visitors often refer to as ‘noise’ but we are used to its strange echoes.

The peacocks, of course, love to dance the ‘fantail’. Now, even though it’s only the males who do this, the females find it enormously entertaining (occasionally!) They also play a game called ‘scare-the-hell-out-of-Julie’ which consists of blood-curdling screams which never fail to stop me in my tracks, as they are so piercing.

The chooks love to play hide and seek in amongst the bits and pieces of farm debris. The hens are particularly good at hiding which is probably because they don’t like the roosters’ idea of play which I think is better left undescribed here.

The turkeys love a game called ‘peck-the-duck-until-it-wakes-up’. Even though the following picture is of one of the Bubbles (turkey) and Tapper (duck) when they were young, they still play this game with varying degrees of success.

The golden pheasants used to play a war game that turned out to be not a game at all but a war, with the loser banished to an adjacent property and the winner remaining here, victorious and splendid. And lonely. War games are no longer encouraged here.

The Indian runner ducks love to run around, pretending to be fast and, yes, before they met the emus, they thought they were fast. Unfortunately for the Indian runners, most of the timed races have been won by the Emerys, but the ducks are very dignified losers. The Emerys do concede, however, that they have the distinct advantage of loooooooooooooonger legs!

The best game of all here is waterplay and, since the following photo was taken, we have added a pond so that it isn’t just Godfrey who gets to play.

Oh, I nearly forgot – Buttons, the weiro, likes to boogie on my shoulder. He seems to be able to turn his head all the way around, then does this nodding thing really fast, then he shakes himself, then the whole dance move repeats itself. Since he is on my shoulder more than he is off my shoulder lately, this means that I am constantly covered in a sprinkling of tiny feathers that look like dandruff, as well as, you know, weiro waste (the excitement of the boogie seems to affect his little bowel – oh well!)

The following youtube of a crow snowboarding is accompanied by a rather serious little article about whether birds like to play in the same way humans do. I don’t think it matters.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2012/01/16/snowboarding-crows-the-plot-thickens/

Wings

12 Comments »
Jan 11

Down the rabbit hole

by jmgoyder

Yesterday, in the early evening after all the birds were safely in their yards, I decided to take some photos of the rabbits. Oh yes, haven’t I mentioned them before? We have hundreds of rabbits – well, perhaps not quite hundreds, but lots and lots – so many, in fact, that a friend from Perth asked if I was breeding them. No, I am not breeding them; they are doing that extraordinarily well all by themselves.

In other words, we have a rabbit plague.

They are everywhere! At any time of the day or evening, I can look through any window, or go outside, and I will see not just one or two rabbits, but entire families scampering around, here there and everywhere, in amongst the peacocks and guinneas and geese and ducks and chickens and turkeys. The scene resembles something rather heavenly except it is not heavenly because those rabbits are digging up the foundations of every building on the farm – that is five sheds and this house! I keep expecting the house to suddenly tip over. After all, it’s a very old house.

So last evening I sat outside, camera ready and waited. And waited. And waited. And I didn’t see one rabbit – not even a bunny! It was as if, like Alice in Wonderland, I had fallen down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world – this one devoid of rabbits. I wish.

Anyway, I thought I better take a picture of something, so I took one of the feathers on the lawn. In a previous post I mentioned that, with all the birds molting, it looks a bit like it has been snowing. Then I took a picture of King peacock’s final feather. As I said in another previous post he’s been hanging onto that last symbol of his former glory for ages. Now, having shed that final tail feather he will have to wait several months for them to all grow back. Poor guy seems a bit lost now.

I was still waiting for a rabbit or two to appear so I took another couple of photos of feathers that had blown into a blossom tree. I say a blossom tree because I’ve forgotten what kind of tree this is and Husband isn’t here to enlighten me (I’m ashamed to say that after nearly 20 years of marriage and living here, I still don’t know what many of these trees and flowers are!)

Actually, I’m not comfortable with the little white lie I just told about the feathers in the tree. They were in the tree earlier in the day but had blown onto the ground again, so I put them back in the tree to take the photos. Is that false photography? Interesting concept!

I am not, however, white-lying about the rabbits. The weird thing is that I haven’t seen any today either, so far.

Perhaps I’ve magicked them away somehow. On the other hand, the house does feel a little tilted today!

Or maybe I’m just stuck inside a ‘Julie in Wonderland’ rabbit hole.

When I go in to see Husband today, I will ask him what the blossom tree is called. He will know.

Animal Uncategorized Wings

12 Comments »
Dec 20

The frantic fluttering of wings

by jmgoyder

In the life-death-life-death-life cycle of birds I have now seen it all, had my heart  broken then re-put-together, and dealt swiftly with the kind of suffering that is evidenced by the frantic fluttering of wings. As you know, we have a fox problem; in fact this whole district has a fox problem, but I didn’t realise how much of a problem this was until we suffered our first casualties (this was before we lost our first emus).

It was months ago now, back at the beginning of our bird adventure and I will never forget that morning.

It was very early and the sun was just crawling out from behind a cloud when I heard a dreadful chorus of squawking and quacking, so I leapt out of bed and ran out of the house to the back yard and, only metres away, there was a fox with one of our male Indian runner ducks in its jaws. I shrieked and ran towards it and it let the duck go and ran away and, thankfully, the duck survived.

I called all of the birds – and gradually, silently, the chickens who hadn’t been killed came towards me. I have a food bin out the back, so I got some bread and they livened up a bit but, when I did a head count, I only counted six when there should have been 12. And I couldn’t find our two roosters. Then, I realised that the Indian runner I had saved, was all alone; his female mate was gone too.

There were feathers everywhere, but no bodies, and I learned later that foxes (specifically vixens feeding their cubs), bury or hide what they kill for a later food source. But that morning, not knowing what I know now, I sat down on the ground and cried while I fed little bits of bread to the survivors.  There was an eerie silence and I looked up into the wattle trees to see that all of the peafowl and guinnea fowl were still there, staring down, scared and quiet.

I stopped crying and called up, “It’s okay, you can come down now; the fox is gone,” and, one by one, they vacated their branches to land softly near me and to share the bread with others.

Wings

13 Comments »
Dec 8

Lullaby

by jmgoyder

The sound of their wings as they launch themselves up into the wattle trees at dusk is like a lullaby. I sit quietly and watch as all of the guinnea fowl and peafowl go to bed. I love the way each bird chooses a branch for the night and there is never any squabbling. King peacock is usually the first and then, one by one, or sometimes in pairs, they all fly up.

It is too late in the day for Husband to come outside with me to hear this lullaby, to watch this never-ending work of art, so usually I race back inside and tell him and he gives me that bemused look he is so good at. It’s very similar to Son’s ‘yeah, whatever, Mum’ look, so I’m never quite sure how to interpret it.

If you have been following this blog you will know that Husband has Parkinson’s disease. He doesn’t have the Michael J Fox type; he doesn’t shake at all. He has the kind of Parkinson’s that immobilizes him, that makes it very difficult for him to walk, to get up from a chair, to get out of bed, to be who he used to be – a man who used to run around the paddocks for the fun of it and round up cattle without a motorbike – my hero.

We have just bought a scooter for Husband and, even though he wasn’t that keen to have a vehicle made for the disabled, he actually really likes it now, so tomorrow at dusk, Husband and I will watch the lullaby together.

Wings

16 Comments »
Nov 25

Guinnea fowl blockades?

by jmgoyder

The reason this turkeyish creature looks so lost and alone is because it is a guinnea fowl and it has temporarily misplaced its group of other guinnea fowl. The other reason it looks so lost and alone is because it has a very small brain and, possibly, very poor eyesight too, because the rest of the guinneas are less than a metre outside the frame of this photo.

But these were the birds that Husband first chose to add a bit of aesthetic interest to our garden and to our lives and, yes, I like them too, but, of all the birds, they are the least approachable, the most noisy and the stupidest. A good example of the latter is that if anyone is driving up (or down) the driveway and the guinneas are pecking away at the gravel, no amount of tooting the horn, or revving the engine, will get them to move. They might come up to the front of your vehicle and stare absently at the licence plate, perhaps nibble a few dead bugs off the fenders but they will NOT get out of the way!

Some mornings, I actually have to get out of the car or the ute and shoo them away before I can even get to the front gate to go to the local shop to get the newspaper, milk and fresh bread.

I try to love these guinneas as much as I love the other birds, but it’s hard because they are so thick! And they don’t love me back the way the other birds do; they just glance at me occasionally. Their indifference to me is quite hurtful.

“But they look so lovely on the lawns, Jules,” Husband says fondly (not fondly to me, fondly of them). This is usually when I go in and grab a wine before I trudge back down the long, long driveway to fetch the vehicle that the guinneas have once against trapped. Argh!

On the other hand, it’s just occurred to me that, as a group, they might be quite useful to the police if a blockade were required to deter a runaway criminal. Yes – this could work. I’ll ring the cops now and see what they think. We have 15 guinneas so they could probably do it in shifts of five.

I guess I better check with Husband first; he might not approve.

Wings

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