Hoot Hollow

The 'Hoot Hollow' Owl House and Courtyard Arena is home to eleven of the twelve owl species found in Southern Africa. A pair of endangered Burrowing owls that hail from North America are the only foreign raptors on display.

Owls are birds that almost every child is aware of, but very few of us have ever seen. What makes owls different from the other predatory birds is their predominantly nocturnal life style. Like people, owls have forward-facing eyes to facilitate binocular vision. Their eyes are much larger than ours though, and this allows them to still see in very low light conditions. They can’t, however, see in pitch dark and it is, in fact, their hearing that is their strongest sense. Their flat face and asymmetrically placed ear holes allow them to locate their prey with deadly accuracy.  Their silent wing beats facilitate their 'hunting by hearing' as they can maintain audio-contact with their prey on approach and they still have the element of surprise because their prey cannot see or hear them coming.

Some of their stories.........

P earl-spotted Owlets (Afrikaans - Witkoluil, Zulu - iNkovana).This 'pearlie pair' are captive-bred birds from Moholoholo Rehabilitation Centre in the Limpopo Province. Often awake and active during the day, these tiny owls nest in barbet or woodpecker holes in trees. As adults they have a ‘false face’ pattern on the back of their heads to confuse predators. If disturbed they open their eyes wide and wag their tails in indignation! 

Squiff and Co:  (Wood Owls - Strix Woodfordii) Squiff is a "real lady" and has been in our care since 2001. Even although she cannot fly, people frequently return to visit her. Squiff gets her name because she has a mal-aligned beak - thought to be a hatching defect. She was found near Mooi River with a broken wing, after being hit by a car.  She got into trouble when out hunting insects under the streetlights just after she left the nest. While being fed by her parents, her deformed beak probably didn't cause her too many difficulties, but after she left their care she might have struggled to tackle tough-skinned rodents and so preferred to hunt insects instead. Squiff and Co (her blind wood-owl friend) lived together for five years until Oscar Wol joined them in 2006 in their man-made wood in the “Hoot Hollow” Owl house. Blind Co promptly laid an egg, which she and Squiff amazingly incubated, hatched and raised together. The result… Woo!

Nando  is the Sanctuary’s largest flying owl, so named because she is particularly partial to chicken. Cape Eagle Owls (Bubo capensis capensis) are special because they  are endemic only to southern Africa. She was bred at the Dullstroom Bird of Prey Centre in Mpumalanga. Every year the Dullstroom cape eagle-owl pair has one fertile egg and Nando was the 2003 egg! Similar to the more common spotted eagle-owl, the cape eagle-owl is larger, browner and has bright orange eyes.

She is the type of girl you'll never forget. Although stroppy and opinionated,  she is mostly ‘hot air’ and has been seen running for her life is she feels threatened by any other bird (including hadeda’s) who may enter her airspace.

A

lpha  is a Spotted Eagle Owl (Bubo africanus) female and was the first bird to be officially bred by proprietor Ben Hoffman here in KwaZuluNatal; hence her name.

'Spotties' are the commonest owl species found in South Africa and feature the classic eagle-owl ear-tufts. The success of spotted eagle-owls is due to their adaptability - they are not fussy about where they nest, what they eat and how they catch their prey.
In displays Alpha shows off the amazing stealth of owls as she glides silently above the audience. This silent flight differentiates owls from the diurnal raptors and makes them very efficient predators working the night shift.

P isces the Pel’s Fishing Owl  (Afrikaans -   Visuil, Scientific name -    Scotopelia peli) is a rare and shy owl species that many of us have never seen in the wild. Pisces was found in a 'sad' animal facility in central Africa and had been there for many years in a very small cage. She was brought to Lori Park Zoo in Johannesburg and then transferred here to the Sanctuary in 2006.

In the wild, Pel’s Fishing owls haunt the deeper pools of meandering rivers in riverine forest areas. Unlike other owls their legs are unfeathered and they have very rough soles of their feet to allow them to keep hold of slippery fish which they pluck feet-first from the river. They are also not built for silent flight because it is unnecessary to their hunting method.

Pisces has developed a taste for chicken and sometimes refuses to eat the scrumptuous fish that kind fishermen bring her. 

Words of Wisdom

A wise old owl sat in an Oak,

the more he saw , the less he spoke.

The less he spoke the more he heard.

Why can't we be like that wise old bird?

ANON