Last year "Uiltjie" – maybe better known as "The Caring Owl" – disappeared after having been on the farm for the better part of eight years.
Last year "Uiltjie" – maybe better known as "The Caring Owl" – disappeared after having been on the farm for the better part of eight years.
I gave up hope that he was still alive, but after 3 months he returned for a couple of hours, just to disappear again. Since then he has shown up a couple of times, but his visits were very short.
About a month ago he showed up again, this time accompanied by a female.
The two moved into his old nest box which, by now, was falling apart so I decided to put up a new nest box for them, hoping that they would move into it.
It wasn't too long before they began visiting the new box and as soon as I was sure that they'd accepted it, I dismantled the old box.
The female owl is one that was sent to me by Dr Wood of Nahoon Bird and Animal Clinic, after he had treated her for a fractured leg.
She was released about the same time as "Uiltjie" disappeared and I suspect that she followed him to wherever he went and that she eventually succeeded in getting him to realise that he was an owl and not a human being.
I named her "Woody" which can mean "Lady from the Woods" – but in this case it actually means "Lady from Dr Wood".
The question now is – will he mate with her and for a change raise his own little baby owlets?
I guess only time will tell. In the meantime the two are visiting the nest frequently during the night and are roosting in a wild fig tree close to the nest during daytime.
Their official breeding season begins in August/September so maybe, just maybe, one of these days we will have a few little "Uiltjies" flying around here in the garden.
