Snow fell on Brummel Street in Evanston this week and all was quiet. Too quiet for some.
No longer does a semiwild guinea fowl sound its barbaric yawp from a spruce tree before dawn. People don’t stop their cars anymore to gawk at the strange-looking bird walking down the street, described by one of his chief admirers as looking like “a Thanksgiving turkey breast with a head.”
And Debby Spatafora, who has lived on Brummel for 22 years, no longer is greeted each day when she comes home from work.
“I never thought I could fall in love with a bird and care so much,” said Spatafora, 57. “I miss him every day.”
In May, a Brummel Street resident rescued the bird after it was found wandering the streets of Evanston. Over the summer and into the fall, several people pitched in and nursed the bird back to health, fed him, named him Karl and generally enjoyed his company. But both fans and detractors of the bird seem to agree he’s in a better place now.
Guinea fowl, which loosely resemble wild turkey, are sometimes kept as a form of pest control in more rural areas, experts say, not in settings like Evanston.
With winter looming, a few residents hatched a plan to capture the bird, and they took him to a farm near Mahomet in central Illinois this month.
Josh Worth, 22, rescued Karl back in May. He had been driving along busy Howard Street when the bird darted out in front of his car. Worth and a friend pulled over and found the bird in a back yard. Worth wrapped a towel around the bird, which was too weak to resist, and brought him home to Brummel Street.
Worth named the bird Karl after a cartoon llama. For about a month, his family kept Karl in their garage as they nursed him back to health, he said, feeding him corn, bread and oats.
Once healthier, Karl was allowed outside. That’s when Spatafora, who lives across the street, came into the picture.
“I said … ‘He’s beautiful, and I’d like to do more to help you,'” Spatafora recalled.
She began researching the proper feed for guinea fowl, and soon Karl had a new friend and food source. She described the bird as “quirky, fun and tenacious” and said the experience ultimately confirmed her own choice to be a vegetarian.
Another neighbor, Kristin Lems, a folk musician and bilingual education teacher, said she’s in the process of writing a song about Karl. She could hardly stop laughing when recalling his appearance, his call and his impact on the neighborhood. She said she’ll likely pass on Thanksgiving turkey from now on, because she would “see visions of Karl.”
She described his call as a “two-tone” noise that sounded like a “rusty piece of equipment.”
“There was nothing melodious about it,” Lems said. “But it sort of grew on you.”
It did not grow on the Goss family, who lived right near the spruce tree where Karl roosted at night.
Sam Goss, a general contractor, said his family called animal control to capture and remove the bird from the neighborhood. Karl’s “screeching cackle” tended to come an hour before sunrise, Goss said, and an hour before sunset.
More Top Picks Surge Protectors
“It was … the middle of the summer when you like to have your windows open,” Goss said. “But my wife is not a morning person, so it didn’t work out too well.”
Evanston police Cmdr. Jay Parrott confirmed that animal control had responded twice to Brummel Street but was unable to capture Karl.
Cindy Gibson, president of the Texas-based Guinea Fowl International Association, said it’s unusual for guineas to spring up unexpectedly in urban settings. In addition to being a natural form of pest control — they like to eat insects, and ticks in particular — guinea fowl are also sometimes raised for eggs and meat, she said.
With the threat of winter — as well as predators like hawks and coyotes — looming, Spatafora, Worth and neighbor Mark Swanson began their efforts to capture Karl in October. Through social networking, they found Julie Davis, who lives on a 100-acre farm near Mahomet and keeps guineas, among other animals.
But Karl, by then healthy, proved exceedingly difficult to catch.
“He ran like a track star,” Worth said.
The bird could also take to the sky when advanced upon.
After weeks and various methods, the neighbors finally caught Karl in a chicken trap in the Worths’ yard Nov. 9. Spatafora and Swanson drove him to his new home that day.
At the farm, Davis said Karl is happy to be among his own kind. She said she’s had animals all her life and loves the sound of the guineas in particular. Still, her passion isn’t likely to change her Thanksgiving menu.
“I’m going to tell you the truth: I’m going to eat turkey,” Davis said. “But I’m not going to eat Karl.”
Twitter @NorthShoreTrib