Bird watching...

You know how some are people watchers? Some buy fish tanks, something about watching the fish just calms and relaxes you.....

Well, we like to watch our BIRDS! And it seems like we have all kinds of them....

Our guinea fowl

Guinea like to run around in a pack, making all kinds of noises. They are one of our hardest working birds here though, next to our chickens who give us eggs daily! They herd around our yard eating all kinds of bugs, including the dreaded tick. They also are supposed to be known for eating weed seeds, although they seem to not do a great job with that....I am ALWAYS pulling weeds!!! :)
We currently only see 10 together. We hatched a little over 2 dozen last year, but the winter predators proved a little too much for them, and now we have even less. These guys are now getting smarter and roost inside our barn at night. These are not the smartest of our bird friends....the females like to nest in tall grassy areas and after laying so many eggs, they sit on them for about a month, through the rain, storms, heat, etc. But sadly, they never seem to make it...they aren't known to be great mothers, they will leave the chicks behind or some creature will hunt them. So when we see a nest of eggs (which are extremely hard to find), we gather them up and put them in our incubator for "SAFE" hatching!

Here are some of our other birds that are fun for "Bird Watching"....

Our egg laying hens, which as of now consists of about 40

Our miniature roosters, we have 3. They don't really have a job, just like to strut around being the boss of the coupe!

 Now these are birds that I NEVER thought I would raise! Our beautiful PEACOCKS and PEAHENS. As  a child, I didn't even think you could! But they are so much fun and great for putting on a show! Especially when we have company over, it's like they perform on queue. We have one white peacock. Some call them albino, which they are not. These are an actual variant of the species. He is patiently waiting for us to find him a lady friend.....poor guy!

Felipe,  taking a much needed siesta in the shade

 Now Paco is our original male peacock. We inherited him along with 2 lady friends, which we have kept un-named. I know, that's rude, but we can't even tell them apart anyways..... :)

Paco being camera shy

Paco's young sons, getting so BIG

 Paco currently has 5 young sons that are beginning to look just as beautiful as he is! This week, they are starting to grow their long tail-feathers that these blue peacocks are so well-known for.

EXTRA EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT.....4 MALE ONE-YEAR OLD PEACOCKS FOR SALE!!!
Hopefully we can get them sold soon, the ladies have been busy laying eggs and will begin sitting on them soon. Anxious to see what the ratio will be this year....they hatched 5 males and only 1 female last year!

If you look close, you can see that they are getting their tail-feathers

After a long day of chores, cleaning, projects, or work...I am totally content just sitting on our back porch and BIRD WATCH....
Now if only I could get our wonderful kitty cats to stop eating all the other beautiful species of birds that visit us...we used to have bird feeders and would attract a few dozen Eastern Goldfinch at one time....but had to get rid of the feeders...because of this:

Jetta-Bella

She looks so mean in this picture, doesn't she? Poor Jet, she is getting a bad rap...she is actually extremely sweet and very lovey- dovey...if you are NOT a bird :)
~Kim