On an apple farm in Elgin there is a big hok with unusual occupants.
In one section are two jackal buzzards and in the other, four spotted eagle owl youngsters. It’s feeding time.
Jessie Fagan walks into the hok with a bakkie of food that only raptors could find delicious: raw chicken legs and dead day-old chicks. The owls perk up. “This one is George and that’s Fred. Some school kids named them after the twins in Harry Potter,” Jessie said. Jessie holds out a chicken leg and George grabs it in his beak and swallows it whole. After another one she asks if he is full. Clearly not, as he takes yet another chicken leg. But oh my word! His little insides must be almost bursting, because he battles to get it down. He pauses for a breather, looking hysterical with half the chicken foot sticking out of his beak. Then a final swallow and it’s gone. The two young owls were brought into a local farmyard by dogs, and the farmer brought them to Jessie. The other two, Google and Babbie, are a little older. Google was found being harassed by dogs while Babbie was found with a damaged leg and wing. Jessie fixed the leg with masking tape. Unlike most birds, owls do not have a crop, so the food goes directly into their digestive tract. Because they swallow their prey whole, the digestive system has to sort things out: nice fleshy bits are digested while bones, teeth and fur are formed into an oval pellet. After several hours, the owl regurgitates this pellet. If you have ever stood under a tree where an owl roosts, you will have seen these pellets on the ground. I remember one at a picnic site in the Kgalagadi. If you pull the furry lump apart, you can see perfect little mice jaws and other delicate bones. I knew an archaeologist who used to analyse owl pellets from archaeological digs. Identifying the different animals the owls had eaten all those thousands of years ago helped build up a picture of the surrounding environment in prehistoric times. Jessie works on the permit of another rehabilitation centre, and over the last 30 years has rehabilitated and released around 100 birds, mainly raptors. There is some debate about whether one should rescue animals that have been injured, or leave them to let nature take its course. Most government conservation bodies worldwide opt not to interfere, but some have an approach that if an animal has been injured by humans, including by their pets, vehicles and poisons, it is acceptable to intervene. Jessie said her philosophy is similar to the Thousand Starfish tale. It’s about a little girl who finds hundreds of starfish washed up on the beach and she starts picking them up and throwing them back into the sea. A man sees her and tells her there are so many she won’t make any difference. She stops with a starfish in her hand and replies: “I’m making a difference to this one”, and throws it back into the sea.
