With the advent of Covid 19 and shutdown seems to have brought many of the natural wildlife into the Cottage. Rhodes Cottage is home to a large variety of Fynbos and animals and birds. To date there has been sightings of Porcupines, lizards, and the presence of Cape otters through droppings containing crab shells. On Wednesday while we were working to raise a Tea Room -a friendly otter came to right to us, it sat and watched us – placing it’s head on its paw, and rolled around playing with its tail like a dog- then walked around carefree – then came right up to my leg and nibbled the bottom of my long trousers. I did try to avoid it, and climbed benched and hid behind the back door gate. If I was more courageous I would have tried to pet it -as it clearly – it seems- it was looking for company. From the video clip it seems that it had a small limp, but this wouldn’t jeopardies its survival.
We hope to install night cameras to see what comes out of the dark, it seems -while all the Curators are away, the Otters will play.
