06/05/2026
πΏ RANGER DIARY Meet our resident pair of Western Barn Owls, "nonnetjie-uil" in Afrikaans, or simply "ghost owls" if you've ever caught one drifting past in the dark π»
They've made their home in our silos, and we couldn't ask for better neighbours.
Telling the two apart takes a keen eye. The female tends to show warmer brown tones around the rim of her heart-shaped facial disc, darker bars on her tail, and fine black spots on her chest and the undersides of her wings. The male is generally paler, more purely white below. She's also the slightly heavier of the two. Don't tell her π π
Built for the night: asymmetrical ears that can pinpoint a mouse by sound alone. Feathers engineered for near-silent flight. A diet of rats, mice, shrews, and the occasional hare, swallowed whole, bones and fur, later compressed into neat little pellets and cast aside.
And they mate for life. π π₯°
π Elandsberg Nature Reserve | Bartholomeus Klip
πΈ Esmeralda