My latest pic in my album is in celebration of my having acquired my first ever Guinea-fowl!
I have always loved these birds...anything with a head(tiny) to body(round) ratio like that has gotta have ...um...personality!

Anyway, some friends of mine run a suburban wildlife management business...removing possums from roofs & rescuing snakes from washing machines etc and a coupla of weeks ago they were asked to remove this weird bird from a suburb that had been kinda rural, but was expanding..thus less room for 'wildlife'.
It turned out to be a feral male guinea-fowl who had obviously been surviving in the area for some time, but all on his own. I didn't want him to be euthanased, so as I am in a semi-rural area & we have chooks etc I said I would take him!

So Percy, as he is now known, spent the first couple of weeks in our chicken coop but not very happy as now he was locked-up as well!....meanwhile I was doing some net research, finding out as much as I could about guinea-fowl, learning that Percy was indeed a boy, and that they are generally fairly monogamous...So!...the search began for a girl!

Now, I don't know what subtle cues guinea-fowl might use to choose the 'love of their life', but my choice would have to do him :-)

So the other day I arranged a 'marriage' for Percy, and he now has Gertrude, a younger woman, but they appear to have taken to each other well.
After a few days 'honeymoon' together in the chicken coop to settle in, today they had their first day outside...they had a great time & were obviously so happy to be able to wander about selecting the best bits of grass & having a dust-bath together.
I was a bit concerned whether they would think of our place as home (Percy spent his first few days 'escaped' in the neighbours yard when we first got him), but this evening they wandered back on late sunset & settled down to sleep on top of the chicken coop!

I am so thrilled!
There is enough room around our place for them to wander around during the day & sleep safely at night, either on the chicken coop or in a tree...If Percy had lived wild for a few years already I guess he has the instincts to survive, and he appears to be protective of Gertrude already...
maybe they will even have 'keets' !(the name for guinea-fowl chicks)

:-)