Sunday, July 17, 2005
This is a Guinea fowl. They certainly are odd looking birds. I took this picture at my parents'.
When I turned on my cell phone this morning, I found 2 calls from my mother. One was from 2:30AM the other 7:20AM, this morning. She was asking me to come out to the farm.
I was driving down the gravel road to their place. Driving toward me was a large pickup pulling a large boat. Rolling up my window, I pulled over to the side, under some trees, to wait for the pickup to get past. I waited for the dust to settle, a bit, before moving. When I did start driving again, my window was still up, and I was debating how much dust would get into the car if I rolled it down.
I noticed some large flying insects I thought, first, were horse flies. They were bullet shaped and kept attacking my car. I realized they were hornets! They would fly in front of the car and bash their heads(or bodies - I could hear the clunks) against the windshield, the top of the car, and my windows. There were quite a few of them, too. I figured they must have a nest on one of the trees I might have brushed against when I was pulling over. I stopped the car (I didn't want to lead them to my parents' home). I watched them for awhile, and finally, they tired. When there were only a few, I resumed driving. Now, I see why people say leave hornets' nests alone. I had never seen that happen, before, even though, growing up in the farm, there were plenty hornets around.
