November 21

The Guinea Fowl at the Cheney Farm have nearly reached maturity, and the five birds we see in the morning gather near the roadside fence in the daylight, calling uniquely in alarm when anything out of sorts passes nearby.

Bruce nurtured a half dozen eggs in the incubator last spring and transferred the chicks to a brooding yard after their arrival. Throughout the summer they remained mostly protected and given increasingly free reign to the front barnyard, which itself has always been a jumble of cast-off machinery and assorted implements. We’ve grown accustomed to all manner of chickens, roosters and turkeys throughout the years, the latter always mysteriously disappearing right around this time of the season. This is just as well, for the birds tend to wander recklessly into Grove, and we have in the past come upon a scene of feathers in the street where some poor bird met its end being struck by a car.

Bruce indicates that this summer has seen more red tail hawks overhead, and a few of the chickens and even a Guinea have become prey. The remainder scatter quickly when a shadow passes overhead, evidently a learned behavior or instinctual response. Now that the ravens have returned for the autumn, the smaller birds are still at risk as are the eggs that have been set within the brooder.