For those of you that have never seen a Guinea Hen....here ya go!
Guinea hens are odd creatures. They are bigger than chickens but smaller than turkeys. They look something like an over grown quail but don't have the 'antenna' on the head. (come on...you know what I mean). They form gangs and terrorize neighborhoods with their cackle/screech. They rarely do anything independently...including thinking. They walk together; find bugs to eat together; screech together; and get totally freaked out...yup, you guessed it...together! In short they are one of the funniest birds to watch!
When I came upon them on Old Main St. I wasn't surprised at all. You never know what type of animal you may come across there. But I was excited. I pulled over; grabbed my camera and started over to them. The problem was they didn't know what I was doing and I was way too big to be another Guinea hen. So they started walking away while keeping one eye on me at all times. I stopped walking...they stopped walking. I start walking...they start walking. I walked away....they followed me. It was crazy! I started taking pictures and they started screaming and running for their lives! I didn't know what to think.
More hens started pouring out into the road from around the corner and now all of them were convinced they were being attacked...or at least you'd think so from the way they were acting. Running and screaming in a loose pack and every darn one of them looking at me at the same time. I was so astonished by this that I didn't do anything but watch them at first. Then I couldn't help bursting into laughter. This was utterly ridiculous and wildly funny at the same time. I've never seen birds quite so synchronized in every way like this before. It's like they had one brain between them and that brain was convinced I was some thing of inspire terror!
Eventually they calmed down enough for me to take a few pictures. But I'm sure they were never convinced I was safe. So after some picture taking and a lot more screaming (from them, not me) I decided I had enough and probably so had they.
