Vulturine Guineafowl

Ha, I took this photo on 2 July 2007! Came across it when I was doing a bit of tidying up on my hard drive, ready for the dreaded day when I have to get all the data transferred to a new computer. I ordered it late last night after completely stressing myself out and just hope that I chose the right things! Guess I'll find out, when it arrives and I try and put it together, lol. Will wait till the new year to get this transfer done. I was so thankful that I could get a machine with Windows 7 installed on it, not Windows 8. I just couldn't bring myself to delete this image, even though the bird's face was rather blurry and it had its nictitating membrane down over its eye. Finally tried cropping it today and it worked OK. I think these birds have such gorgeous feathers and it seemed such a shame to delete them. Photographed at the Calgary Zoo.

"The Vulturine Guineafowl (Acryllium vulturinum) is the largest extant species of guineafowl. Systematically, it is only distantly related to other guineafowl genera. Its closest living relative, the White Breasted Guineafowl, Agelastes meleagrides inhabit primary forests in Central Africa. It is a member of the bird family Numididae, and is the only member of the genus Acryllium. It is a resident breeder in northeast Africa, from southern Ethiopia through Kenya and just into northern Tanzania.

The Vulturine Guineafowl is a gregarious species, forming flocks outside the breeding season typically of about 25 birds. This species' food is seeds and small invertebrates. This guineafowl is terrestrial, and will run rather than fly when alarmed. Despite the open habitat, it tends to keep to cover, and roosts in trees."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulturine_Guineafowl

www.arkive.org/vulturine-guineafowl/acryllium-vulturinum