Owl boxes for Woodside

A few residents in Woodside Village decided it would be great if we could attract owls back to Woodside. An appeal was sent out for cash to have owl boxes placed in certain areas in trees on the perimeter of the village. A gentleman from Pretoria, can't remember his name, came and gave us a talk on how owls would benefit us by keeping the rodent population at bay.

Two owl boxes were eventually placed.One to attract Eagle Owls in the Cork Oak tree near the entrance of Woodside and the other for Barn Owls somewhere on the Berm.While it is lovely to have squirrels in residence here they decided that the Eagle Owl box was the perfect home for them and proceeded to stuff the box with their nesting material of leaves and twigs. I am not sure how the Barn Owl box has fared, I can only see the one in the Cork Oak tree. I do know now though that there are Barn Owls around here as I often hear them at night.

It is a pity that Rattex is used to keep the rat population at bay as I fear that an owl devouring a rat that has consumed the poison would probably kill the owl as well as domestic cats around here. There is an owl friendly type of poison for rats but it is very expensive to use.

Owls

Before Woodside Village was built the Marsh Memorial Homes had a large tract of land that they owned which was covered in nasturtiums and old oak trees. When this piece of land was offered on a long lease to the developers of Woodside Village a retirement village was established which meant removing the oak trees that I believe were the perching spots and probably the nesting areas of Spotted Eagle Owls.

Behind my cottage is a block of flats three stories high.One evening when we first moved in a Spotted Eagle Owl was perched on a pinnacle of a section of the flats. Sadly this was to be the first and last sighting of an owl around here.

I am adding an image of a Spotted Eagle Owl taken by cell phone at Stellenbosch University from art student Oliver whose accommodation faced onto an old tree where the owl was perched. Oliver also produced a drawing of the owl.

More of Kgalagadi

One evening after dark when I was in bed & Charles was out looking for owls in Mata Mata Gale was resting on the stoep she noticed something moving across the paving making it's way towards the door of our bungalow.Next to the door that was open the step for me to use when getting in & out of the landrover was placed.It is a heavy box type step with fairly large holes drilled in its side to make it lighter in weight.
Gale soon realised that this was indeed a snake but luckily did not panic. She informed the neighbours who immediately recognised it as a Puff Adder.They noticed that it was entering through the holes of my step luckily.It could have entered the bungalow without being noticed where Charles had made his bed on a blow-up matress on the floor, or if it had not been noticed entering the step Charles would surely been bitten when lifting the step handling it through a slot in the top of the step.These snakes have deadly venom.

Parks Board officials were called & asked to remove the snake from the step that was no easy task as the box part of the step was enclosed which meant that the Puff Adder had to be coaxed out through one of the holes.It took some time but eventually took the hint & slithered out,was caught & placed in a bucket & taken back to the veld.

We saw a cobra slithering up a bank on one of our outings that was about 7 feet in length & bright yellow.I have never seen such a beautifully coloured snake & such a length before.I am not fond of any type of snake, have not studied them so could not identify it.

A rather tragic event was that of a wildebeest giving birth to it's calf as witnessed by Carroll, a friend of Charles. The wildebeest was struggling with it's effort of delivering the baby when it suddenly collapsed and died.For two days we went back to the spot where the wildebeest lay dead hoping to see vultures or other animals feeding off the carcass.Only on the 3rd day we noticed that some attempt had been made to eat it and sure enough there was a huge lion lying on the side of the road in the shade of a tree looking very full and contented, almost with a smile on his face. He had certainly had his fill and there was plenty left.

When I wrote about the ground squirrels and the mongoose I should have mentioned how they came to drink from a downpipe that often dripped water from the roof due to condensation.Will show a photo of that as well as pictures of wonderful sunrises and sunsets at Nossob and Mata Mata.

I had a look of the preview of all of this. Not quite as I thought it might be but it's O K at least I can say from My Fair Lady, "My God, at last she's got it"