My fifteen guineas spent the Thanksgiving weekend wandering the fields and exploring the cherry tree near the garage. This is the first time so many have chosen to fly into it, and it was quite a sight. I am glad they are learning to fly into trees because this skill will help protect them from predators. They still aren’t very graceful—and may well never be—but when they find themselves wedged in precarious positions they have managed to work it out.
The recent cold weather and early sunset have put a damper on the pleasure I used to take in caring for them. If I need to feed and change their water when I get home from work in the dark, I shine my car’s high beams at the coop and then juggle a flashlight inside to collect their feeder and waterer. The birds are always calm—with most continuing to sleep on their perches—but it’s awkward work for me. I need to run a light into the coop somehow to make this easier.
This morning I took care of the birds before work, and I knocked a sizable ice floe out of their waterer. And then I went to work and started investigating heated waterers. The idea of paying for the electricity to heat guinea water all winter irks me, but when we start getting into the days that don’t rise above freezing I may not have a choice.
Though the chore of caring for the guineas is diminishing in pleasure, what’s increasing is the enjoyment I take in the birds when they are out of their coop and flying/wandering/running around the property. They are behaving pretty well by sticking close to the house, and they are truly hilarious to watch. When I was mowing on the tractor last week, the whole flock was actually chasing after me!
They were probably chasing you because you were scaring up plenty of bugs for them to munch.