Cape Town - Olé! Olé! Olé!
It would have been understandable if several hundred happy Cape Town birders had broken out in this well-known sporting chant on Tuesday because their “missing” visitor, a Pel’s Fishing Owl, had made a very welcome reappearance.
And it would have been appropriate because most of them saw the bird in the Constantia garden of Spanish consul-general Ignacio García-Valdecasas and his wife Raquel late Tuesday afternoon.
A slightly bemused Raquel García-Valdecasas was standing with the electronic gate clicker in her hand, letting in – and out again – a constant stream of birders armed with binoculars, cameras and telephoto lenses.
Nearly all of them had missed the owl, normally found in riverine forests in the wetter parts of Africa, when it was first seen briefly in Newlands several weeks ago.
It was only the second sighting of this species in the Western Cape – and it then disappeared.
But it was spotted again on Monday morning by Marilyn and Tim Noakes, who are neighbours of the Spanish diplomats.
Marilyn Noakes said she had been near the bottom of their garden that borders a tributary of the Diep River when an agitated pair of resident Jackal Buzzards had flushed the owl, first into trees just behind their house and then further harassing it, chasing the “dishevelled” bird into the diplomats’ garden.
She alerted raptor expert Peter Steyn, who had photographed the owl previously, and the news quickly spread.
Raquel García-Valdecasas returned home later in the day to be bombarded with requests from birders anxious to “tick a lifer”.
“People started to phone and phone – by 5.20pm there must have been 300 here already,” she said.
One of them was a smiling Kevin Drummond-Hay of Durbanville, who had been alerted by his wife.
“I came rushing out from Paarden Eiland and the traffic was horrendous, and I almost ran out of petrol, and I was just thinking: ‘Oh hell, am I going to make it!’” he said. - Cape Argus