Picking up chickens

In order to get my New Hamphire Reds this morning, I'll have to get past this guy. Or hag, I can't tell yet what gender it is. Those hooded eyes concern me greatly. It seems a wicked bird, intent on punishing me for having complained about its raucous rawking and causing her (I'm leaning toward 'her') to be banished to the back of the farm. How she knows it was me, I'm not sure, but from the look in her eye when I visited last weekend to choose the New Hampshire's (4 hens and a rooster), she knows alright and I'd better not turn my back. Look at her cruel beak and crueler eye. Those things kill snakes with a single Medusa-glance. Well, they don't kill snakes, they warn of their incursion into the compound, my South African friend tells me, but they easily could slay with a look. At any rate, I suspect she knows I'm coming. I'll wear leggings under my trousers so as not to appear chicken. And carry a stick, as though I'm jauntily walking in a dapper-fellow-like manner. In fact, I'll be gripping it tightly and preparing to swing, should the beast approach me. She'll probably shuffle, sideways and deceptively slowly, but I'll not be fooled. It might pay me to strike early. She'll have spurs, I don't doubt and they'll be stilettos. Covered in listeria or whatever disease birds carry. Psittacosis. I don't know if Guinea fowl fly. If they do, I'm in trouble. There are trees everywhere down there. I'll have my hood up, but is that enough? It's only cloth. Terry has a steel knight's helmet with neck protection. Chain mail gloves too, but he's at Anakiwa on the Outward Bound course and his gear's in town. It would be over the top to drive all that way, just to be adequately protected, wouldn't it? I'll walk behind Robyn, in case the bird attacks her from the only direction she can't see in. At least, you'd think Robyn hasn't got eyes in the back of her head, only there've been times when she's caught me out and the only explanation I can  think of is an extra pair.
Here she is and here are the nice birds, the ones that are coming home with us, God willing.

Hecate

The nice birds