Remember the African Goshawk that featured in our
Name the Bird, Win the Wine competition last year? It’s back – and its family has grown!
Portfolio's head offices in the leafy suburb of Newlands, Cape Town, open out on to a private courtyard which appears quiet, but sees a lot of action from the critters that hang out there.
The Online office which I share with 2 colleagues, Jolene and Candice, looks out onto this sheltered space (which doubles as our staff car park) and we often can be seen peering out the window to watch a squirrel drinking from the water feature, local cats washing themselves in the sun and hadedahs strutting around among the cars. We even recently provided temporary accommodation to a small terrapin before finding him greener pastures....And then there's the owl that we've seen snoozing in the higher branches of the trees, and of course the now famous African Goshawk who, with his mate, visits us each year to breed.
For the first time we have been privileged to meet the baby goshawks in the flesh and feathers. After days of hearing the high, frantic peeping from a nest well out of sight of our binoculars, and seeing Mom and Dad carrying dangling meals of mice from their claws to feed their off-spring, Candice called me out on Friday to see the two babies (BIG babies indeed) strolling nonchalantly among the cars.
So big were they, we first thought it was the adults, perhaps injured as their feathers seemed ruffled and at odd angles, and their short bursts of flight were somewhat clumsy. However we soon realized these were two perfectly healthy young birds in the process of learning to fly. Baby down was still visible through their beautiful big-bird plumage.
Unlike their parents, these two were completely unfazed by us – we could walk right up to them and they simply eyed us impassively and then ignored us. One of the larger local cats attempted to stalk them and Liz (Westby-Nunn) our CEO, chased him over the wall. Jolene was easily able to get close enough to snap these great images of the two the following day.
