Monday 15 November

Early hours of the morning - Central African Time: One of the chicks (either Jelani or Indie), flew to the balcony, and landed on the outside of the balcony - balancing on a small ledge. It tried unsuccessfully to get through the shade cloth that we put around the bars to prevent the chicks from falling off the balcony. Some of you think it was Teeny, but we checked, and Teeny was downstairs by the patio area. The ledge is too narrow for an owl to balance and spread its wings to fly up onto the balcony railing. Instead, the chick flew back to the rooftop, and tried again, this time clearing the balcony railing, and getting on to the balcony.

Under the umbrella, Allan went out cut away the shade cloth from the railing, in case a chick lands on this narrow outer ledge again.

Despite this early morning excitement, all is well on the home front. Teeny is on the patio below, near the owl box. Indie and Jelani are in the nest - looking rather tired after last night's adventures.

This morning, the weather is overcast and cool - a nice change from the high temperatures we experienced over the weekend. There's a good chance of some light showers later on. Of course, Teeny will be well-equipped to deal with the rain with the owl box right at its feet. It's amazing to think that Teeny is the only one out of 8 chicks raised on the balcony, that has had the sense to use the owl box for shade and rain protection. Well done Teeny!

Our petition count to Save-the-Wetland is now at over 17 000 signatures! We are absolutely amazed, delighted and humbled by the flood of interest and support we have received thus far. Originally, we set our target for 10 000 signatures and thought we were stretching the mark a bit. In two weeks, we have almost doubled the target signatures, which proves to me that people do care - even when something does not directly affect them. I am so grateful to everyone all over the world who has pledged support for our small South African wetland, and 'our' owl family's survival. We have not saved the wetland yet, but this petition goes a long way to showing the powers that be, what people want, what our Laws state and what we should be protecting. Please continue to pass on the link to more people. Our target of 10 000 was the bare minimum we thought we needed to stand up and be noticed. The greater the support, the louder our voices will be when the time comes to hand the petition over. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!