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.
This male guinea fowl was found at West School on Friday. Police impounded the animal and he will be transferred to the Stamford Nature Center. Photo published with permission from its owner
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.
“They’re certainly not as aggressive and feral-behaving as the rooster was,” Halm said, referring to a bird impounded at Animal Control last month, “but they are not known for their intelligence.”
“They are not the sharpest bird in the world. They are a flock bird so why he was alone, who knows. They flock together. You see them all running around and they are very noisy. They make a lot of noise—they’re not as noisy as rooster—but they can get very vocal.”
Halm said the Stamford Nature Center has agreed to take the bird at its free-roaming grounds, though by law it first must be kept at the Animal Control shelter at Lakeview Avenue for seven days.
The animal has no name but gets its own impound number—in this case, number 74, Halm said (meaning Animal Control has impounded 74 beasts since last July 1).