Helmeted Guineafowl from Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya

There are two kinds of guineafowl that I encountered in Kenya. One was the Cobalt blue Vulturine Guineafowl and the other is the Helmeted Guineafowl. I spotted the Helmeted Guineafowl, a terrestrial bird during an early morning game drive at Lake Nakuru National Park in Kenya.


This bird species prefers to run rather than fly. In fact, they are great runners and said to cover as much as 15 kms every day. But, if threatened, they will fly and cover long distances. Their diet consist of both plant and animal food; seeds, fruits, snails, spiders, worms and insects, frogs, lizards, small snakes and small mammals. Most of the time, you can see them digging around for food in the undergrowth.


This gregarious bird that roosts in colonies is a pretty large bird. They breed in warm, fairly dry and open habitats with scattered shrub and trees such as savannah or farmland. It breeds mainly south of the Sahara in Africa.