Foul Play

How does one get rid of racketing guinea-fowl?

Day and night I am put to the test with the following kind of noise: a chirping, chomping, chortling, chuckling, cackling, clapping, clattering, cock(ing?) and doodle-a-dooing of an altogether different and feathery nature...

Turns out I did not have enough sympathy with a friend who told me about a year ago of a guinea-plague that had hit her surrounds. Correction. It targeted her and only her garden. They terrorized her in the mornings as they lined up on the telephone wire outside her window and at night stalked her into near madness with constant battering, presumably continuing the day’s gossip.

The cacophonic birds decided to migrate to our side of the mountain. They seem to flourish amongst the depths of our and the neighbours vegetation. These terrorizing spotty little cock-wits with their dozens of hatched eggs seem to be at it from 04h58 in the morning until all hours at night. They either inflict deafening harassment with crass beak-splattering sounds which can put an ibis to shame. Or throw their heavy lumps clumsily and randomly with menacing accuracy out of the sky onto the cottage roof at whatever ungodly hour of the day and night.

Before bedtime last night, the weight of such a one perfected yet another landing on the rooftop. Fat dick, I thought. Must have had a lucky day and probably been digging up each single corn kernel I planted the week before. However, gravitation of such a nature will make any unsuspecting person jump out of their skin and in as in my case it was nearly a jumping out of my skimpy sleep-things. Lewis and Skye sat up straight, ears suspiciously erect as they watched the ceiling with surprised cat interest. It felt as if a dinosaur was about to crash straight through the bedroom window any moment as we listened to tweaky feet scraping above our heads.

Could I shoot them with a pellet gun, do you think? A friend offered to lend me one. Guinea-parties just don’t suit me very well – especially when it must be me frolicking in fun on balmy summer evening... and not some crazy birds.

As it is Friday I may very well let go off any murderous thoughts.

Let them off the whip and hook as I am anyway already harassed by a bird song chorus that starts abruptly each morning at 05h00 together with the wake-up calls of at least 10 cockerels from at least twenty different directions, a snorting bull from a plot nearby, horses galloping, a screaming peacock and the grandeur of Egyptian geese perfecting their Sunday choir songs...

Perhaps I’ll go round to the World of Birds this weekend, as they are situated around the corner – to check out a fraternity of feathered beings. Would I be taken serious if suggesting they lock their very verbal inhabitants up during the night, and maybe until the end of summer?