Animal 411
Police Impound Guinea Fowl Found Pecking at His Own Reflection at West School
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Police last week impounded a male guinea fowl that appears to have started pecking at its own reflection in a glass at West School just after the academic year ended. Officer Allyson Halm of the New Canaan Police Department’s Animal Control section said the bird on Friday “kept looking at himself” in the glass out front of the school in a fashion typical of male peacocks or turkeys who “think it’s another male and become protective over it or aggressive.”
“So he was just banging his head on the glass,” Halm recalled. She was able to net the bird (“I got lucky—they’re very fast”) after he had cornered himself at the school’s entrance. It isn’t clear where he came from or whether he was separated from a flock, as the species typically travel in groups, experts say. People often keep the ground-nesting birds because they eat ticks and do little damage to gardens.