...as it is certainly cold enough, and I watch the highest peak every day.
The highest peak of the mountain range is called the Dome, and you can see it in the picture above.
I have four shots of the mountain range, and then four shots to show you the great coats that the Owls wear in the cold.
Somehow the ambient temperatures are not balanced enough to allow for snow fall, and now we hope for things to become a bit colder. But in saying this one also has to think about the poor street people, as they don't have warm homes to live in. So maybe it's not a good thing for us to hope for things to get colder, just so that we can see some snow on the dome. There is that curse called desires, and the fact that one can never have enough in this world, as we all were born with a want that can never be completely satisfied.
Just so you know, our house, like most South African houses, is not built like the European houses, as ours don't have any insulation or double-glazed windows and such things. Our houses were mainly built to provide cool areas in order to deal with the African summers.
Great news, as this time I got the male owl in the clear. They are called Spotted Eagle-owls (Bubo africanus).
In my last post of the owls, I could only feature the bigger female, as she was in the clear and the male sat hidden behind some branches. But this time I at last got the male on camera. He is smaller than the female, and also has smaller pitched ears, but the color of his eyes are the same as the ones of the female. I had to cough loudly to wake him up, and he was not a happy chappy, as I must have disturbed a dream that he was having about catching a big rodent.
You can see how slowly he opened his eyes when he heard my cough.
So, I coughed a bit louder and he gave me a glare that reminded me of our school principal's glare when I was called to his office for the umptieth time because of one or another misdemeanor that I was guilty of :)
And here is a full-sized look at the male owl.
Just to show you the differences between the female here below, and the male. You can see that she is bigger and her ears are flatter than the male's pitched ears. Shame, she was fast asleep in her warm coat, and I didn't want to wake her only to see her eyes.
Besides, I showed her eyes in the previous owl post.
So, here you have it. I have shown you the mountain range and it is that same mountain range that surrounds the eastern side of our town. Whenever we get snow here that dome is the first to show it, and sadly we don't get snow anywhere else lower down. There are some towns in the Cape where the mountains are completely covered with snow, and they also get snow in the residential areas, but that is quite a distance from here and further inland.
I will repeat here what I said in the last owl post, for those who have not seen it. The owls live in a high tree on the premises of a house down the road from us, and we can see them there now anytime of the day. I have a friend that takes photos of them at night, and he promised to show me a photo of the owl catching a rat below one of the streetlamps, the owls sit on the streetlamps in the road to watch for prey appearing in the light under the lamp. Sadly, my friend has not shown me the photo yet and I will not remind him about it.
Such is life.
I hope you enjoyed the pictures and the story.
Photos by Zac Smith. All-Rights-Reserved.
Camera: Canon PowershotSX70HS Bridge camera.
Until next time, cheers!
