Guineas are winged wonders

a guinea fowl
molting polka dot feathers—
handmade earrings

W&N Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

After years of not seeing any guinea fowl around our property, I was lucky enough to have a visit from them a couple of weeks ago and I was totally thrilled!

Like turkeys, guineas are Galliformes, a group encompassing all chicken-like birds. But while chickens are members of the pheasant family, turkeys and guineas each have a family of their own. Native to Africa, they are known for travelling in large, gregarious flocks. There are seven species of guinea fowl, of which the 'helmeted'  is by far the most common, and certainly the weirdest looking, with its oddly shaped helmet, white, featherless face, bright red wattles, and grey polka-dotted feathers.

Free-ranging guineas spend most of their days foraging. They work as a team, marching chest to chest and devouring anything they startle as they move through the grass. When they discover a special treat—a rodent, for example, or a small snake—they close ranks, circle their prey, and move in for the feast. All the while, they keep up a steady stream of whistles, chirps, and clicks, a sort of running commentary on the day's hunt.

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The Guineas are back

For the first time in many years (except for a brief visit in December 2013), I've had Guinea Fowl visiting my garden again. They even stopped to have a quick snack of corn which I put out for Solly's chickens.

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Guinea Fowl in my garden

Birds are indicators of the environment. If they are in trouble, we know we’ll soon be in trouble.


- Roger Tory Peterson

Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm

Helmeted guinea fowl (Numida meleagris)

I used to have dozens of guinea fowl pass through our smallholding here in Tarlton (Gauteng, South Africa), but these days it’s like Christmas seeing just a few of them. When we moved to Tarlton in the middle 70’s, we were one of a few owners living on the smallholdings and there were large tracts of open land with hundreds of mammals, birds and reptiles that crossed our paths daily. Snakes were rife and regularly had to be removed to a safer place, now we only see a snake a couple of times in the year. I used to have wild hares entering my garden and eating my Marigolds; I haven’t seen an hare for about 7 years. The same with hedgehogs, monitors, tortoises and jackal.

The area is now totally built up and our smallholding is now flanked by people on all sides, property fenced and surrounded by high walls – there are few, if any, empty tracts of of land anymore and I’m just wondering where all the wildlife has managed to find a safe refuge…

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African Joy and Sorrow

"The triumph of life is the joy experienced thereafter."
- Maree

A daily practice of sketching and painting gives you a chance to exercise the big three P's - practice, practice, practice!


Watercolour on Bockingford 300gsm - done from a photograph of Guinea standing on the wall, forlornly calling his missing wife.

A couple of years ago, one of my guinea fowl sitting on eggs was killed by a dog, leaving 10 eggs, on the pint of hatching, without a mother. I gathered all the eggs and put them in a basket with a hot water bottle, trying to keep them warm to see if any of them would hatch. Two days later still nothing, but on the third day I heard a weak peep-peep from one of the eggs. None of the others showed any sign of life, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and open the one that was peeping. I gently peeled away the shell and lifted out a perfectly formed little guinea fowl, and placed him on the warm towel, drying his little body with a soft cloth until he lifted his little head and stared me straight in the eye.

That was the beginning of a beautiful, long relationship with "Guinea", who spent five years following me everywhere and providing us with endless hours of pleasure with his surprising antics. He even lured a wild guinea fowl female from the wild (they used to pass through our property in large flocks, travelling from one field to another) and together they reared 5 clutches of beautiful little guinea fowl, all of whom stayed on our property for many years.

When Guinea's wife disappeared one day, he was inconsolable, standing on the wall and calling for hours in that haunting 'phe-twee, phe-twee, phe-twee' that is so typical of the South African bush. After that, he would often disappear for a day or two until, one day, he didn't come home at all. I hoped and presumed that he had found another family and was happily roaming the fields surrounding our property.

“This life as you live it now and have lived it, you will have to live again and again, times without number, and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and all the unspeakably small and great in your life must return to you and everything in the same series and sequence -- and in the same way this spider and this moonlight among the trees, and this same way this moment and I myself. The eternal hour glass of existence will be turned again and again -- and you with it, you dust of dust!”
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Merry Christmas & A Joyous 2011!

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more?
~Dr. Seuss



One of my Guinea fowl watercolours turned into a Christmas card - this will be my last post for 2010 and here's wishing you all a joyous and inspirational 2011! I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody's art and inspiration in the new year and I would like to thank everybody for viewing my blog and leaving your lovely comments here!