Bitter & Twisted

Monday it was all about a spunky Irish Staff Nurse,
Yesterday it was a piece about modern art
Today, we are back to normal,
It's a blog about a bitter and twisted white guinea fowl called Angostura

Angostura merrily ripping the arse feathers from a clueless Boris

In this world  mean animals are just as common as mean people.

Often there is no reason for it, as it is fairly rare that an animal has experienced an abusive and dysfunctional upbringing that could be blamed for ingrained antisocial behaviour.

Some animals are just bad tempered bastards, plain and simple!

I have once such animal, and her name is Angostura.

Angostura is a white female guinea fowl.

She is around two years old, and was brought to me by a poultry keeper from Prestatyn who asked if I could take her because she was just  too noisy to keep in a built up residential area.

The real reason for him re homing her , I suspect was a somewhat different story

Anyway, for those that don't know, guinea fowl can be incredibly noisy.

Males and females have distinctly different calls, but both can fire off warning calls with the intensity of an average machine gun when the mood takes them. In a town, this ability is an obvious no-no. In the country, however, these calls can be a vital alarm, warning me and everyone else within the village envelope that a fox is lurking somewhere out in the long grass.

My resident guinea fowl, Hughie, little Ivy and Alf are cracking watchdogs.

They will chatter angrily amongst themselves if they see so much as a cat that they don't recognise, and will scream a warning to anyone that is happy to listen if the animal farts in the wrong direction.....Angostura,however, is a somewhat different kettle of fish.

Most of her day is spent plotting murder and mayhem rather than watching and warning the field population. She is a bitch and is not a happy bunny.

The recipients of her bad temper, are the slower, weaker and more gentle of the field birds and in this respect, Angostura is no different than the average school yard bully.

50 times a day, and with her little black flinty eyes burning with uncontrolled anger, she will suddenly zoom in on a victim,  gallop up to it,  and then will grab a gobful of feathers before ripping them out with a somewhat theatrical flourish.before running away.

It's not a nice personality trait.

This morning I had had just about enough of her, for not only had she happily removed most of Boris' bum feathers as soon as his back was turned she had started to notice Sorrel's tiny single baby who had been hidden away in the allotment nursery cage with a worrying intensity..so it was effectively one spat too far when I spied her tugging at the tail feathers of a passing Indian Runner Duck at feeding time

Picking up a couple of tin feeding bowls and hissing a somewhat undignified "YOU ROTTEN LITTLE MISERABLE BASTARD!",I proceeded to chase the tiny nine inch bird around the field flinging the bowls at Angostura as I did so.

The chase carried on until I lost all my puff, and as I stood in the centre of the field all red faced and breathless, Angostura  retreated quite unscathed to the top of the Churchyard wall, where she watched me silently with her black, hard little eyes.

My neighbour Mandy who was pottering about her front lawn when all this was going on,

didn't batter an eyelid

She's well used to me after 6 years of such behaviour

Angostura 1

John 0