53. Some owls. Or owlets. Or Scops-Owls. Some birds.

I’ve been threatening to carry on writing about owls for a while, and now that I’ve arranged a place for them to sit, today is the day I do so. As I have said, the Lowveld supports ten different species of owl. We’ve dealt with one of them, in a bit of a hurry. Today, we deal with another three.

When most people think of owls, they tend to picture the sorts of birds that flapped around in the Harry Potter movies; large, powerful birds that would have no problem carrying obscure magical packages around. These are not those sorts of owls. These are small owls. Tiny owls.

Not these.

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Keeping an eye open for our owls

The book has been on the back-burner for a couple of days. We’ve been a little busy, but most of all the weather has just been miserable. The temperature has been below zero (centigrade), and the water has frozen in the pipes outside. This may not sound all that impressive to those of you from Northern climes, but bear in mind that we cheerfully build our houses as if we lived in Borneo. We tell ourselves that winter doesn’t last very long, dress warmly and sit huddled around heaters and fires. Our own house has inch wide gaps under the doors, and only about half the windows close properly. It’s very hard to type when you can’t move your fingers.