One species has popped up with surprising regularity on most, if not all, our recent visits to South Africa. It’s probably not one that would immediately fly into your mind. The spotted eagle owl.
Saucer-eyed, barrel-bodied, cryptically-coloured with a finely-barred breast and with those great and characteristic ‘ear’ tufts, it’s seemed at times as though these striking nighthawks were actively stalking us rather than us hunting them out.
Peeking out at us from between tree branches in the Kalahari. Sitting on the stoep (South African for veranda) of a man-made owl box at dusk in the coastal garden of our self-catering accommodation in Paternoster in the Western Cape. Struggling to sleep in the middle of Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens where one famous pair is daily snapped for Instagram by hundreds of tourists – and us too. It seems the pair are happy to live by this busy intersection in a world-renowned park because no predators can easily ambush them on the site. And there they are again strutting about attempting to feed unruly youngsters at the water’s edge of the Umlodi night hide on Zimanga private game reserve just after their breeding season. Beautiful birds set off brilliantly against the night-black darkness. Tempting us to photograph them. Who could resist those wide, bright yellow peepers?
Anyone who has been on safari will know that seeing owls is an unexpected bonus of time spent in the bush. It’s especially true on a photographic safari where you’re pushing at the boundaries of the light and often find yourself still busy and about at owl-time. ‘Spotties’ are particularly conspicuous at dusk just before hunting.
In the Kgalagadi us crossing paths with them so often is probably less of a surprise. We’ve visited many times and got to know their regular roosting trees and long-held haunts. Spotted eagle owls can sometimes hold the same sites for decades. Some of their number are old feathered friends.
But even elsewhere in the region it’s really not that surprising that we keep running into each other. This owl species is happy in a wide range of habitats and is, in fact, southern Africa’s most common large owl. It’s as at home in towns and urban settings as it is the remote bushland. Yet can make itself totally inconspicuous when it wants to.
A bit like us really. But most of the time without the yellow eyes.
