I received two messages from my family on my cell phone. The first was of a couple of eggs (below left) and then of those same eggs hatched (below right). We did not wonder for a minute, we knew exactly who the culprits were...
The helmeted guineafowl always visits my garden, and finally this year they decided to lay their eggs in the garden. It was one of the most wonderful moments when I saw the small chicks running in the garden.
It was a couple of months after we saw them in the garden. I saw them mate in the garden by chance, a freak moment that few people have ever witnessed. Have you ever seen these bigger birds mate? It looks exactly the same as two swans. It is kind of violent (or so it looks like from my perspective).
As soon as they arrived in the garden, I followed them around as they ran across the lawn. I felt a strange kind of vicarious parent role, helping them around. Because the mother, with her primal instincts, already wanted them to traverse the dangers of the garden. It gave me the most anxiety I felt for a long time...
But nature has to take her course. We cannot dictate. If we allow our human instincts to protect to take over, we will corrupt the gene pool from stronger animals. Already on the second of third day, I heard falcons and hawks in the area, already noticing the babies. Even crows flew low over my garden as they also heard the small cries of the chicks.
And this broke my heart. Because the chicks spent so much time in my garden, I began learning their calls. I knew exactly the call of the chicks when they searched for their mother, as they sometimes get stuck behind a plant or a gate. It broke my heart not being able to help them. I could not help for various reasons, but the main reason was the aggressive nature of the mother and the fear of the chicks for us humans.
I could only sit and watch as their numbers dwindled day by day. We counted almost 20... but then after a week only 12... then 10... then 8...
Nature is violent. But the strongest survive and they have always survived.
So we hope.
For now, I hope that they will reproduce and keep their numbers high.
All of the musings are my own, albeit inspired by my fear for these small cute fluffy balls of feathers. All of the photographs are my own, taken with my Nikon D300 and 300mm Tamron zoom lens.