It has been a few months since the helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris) visited my garden.
I often see them on and in the roads, running through various gardens. But this morning, I found a father and mother showing me their teenage son or daughter! As I did not have my camera, I slowly turned around and went to fetch it. I slowly entered the garden, this time with my camera, to see the father and mother showing me their child!
Sadly, this was the only youngster in their family, usually, they have many more. Maybe its siblings visited a friend, or so I hope. Because I know, they get killed on the roads, and large birds of prey eat them.
If this is the family that usually visits my garden, they might still remember me! They were very friendly, and tame, not being scared of my movements.
So maybe they still remembered me.
In either case, I managed to snap some photographs of their teenager before they ventured deeper and deeper into my garden. To be honest, they are cute when they are young, but at this stage, they are not the most beautiful thing to look at. They look like Hyenas!
But we still love them despite their looks, and I wish that their numbers will grow again...
The teenager's head popped up through the plants, looking for something to eat! It was not aware that I saw it. But as soon as it realised, it hid behind the thicket.
Mom (and dad!) was on the lookout constantly. They might have lost some of their other children, and hence their protective gestures. I made sure not to get too close...
After all the newly planted plants that they messed up for me, and after all of the early morning calls waking me up, and despite their sometimes ugly looks, I love these birds, and I always appreciate their visit to my garden, especially if they show their children to me!
For now, all I can do is provide them some temporary shelter, as they are nomads by nature. They endlessly walk the streets in search of food, or places to nest. Despite our concrete jungle expanding, their found a way to survive, not in the numbers they used to, but in smaller numbers.
For now, we can only appreciate their beauty...
I hope you enjoyed these photographs of these beautiful birds and their less-than-beautiful teenager, but we all went through that phase!
Keep well, and happy birding.
All of the photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and 300mm zoom lens. All of the musings and writings are my own.