Especially for cat lovers - a true story straight from the African bushveld, outside my back door!

A magical experience!

serval - pixabay

I live in a medium sized South African inland town. Although we are in no way rural, my house is set against a hill. Directly behind us are acres of farmland. There are also a two bone dry river valleys and a waterfall from which no water has fallen in years. In our wettest years we can hear it from our house. We have been in the grip of a severe drought for years now though.

the hills behind our house - original photo

I know much of the land behind us is unused municipal land, and the rest is what I think is grazing. We always used to see horses and cows in the distance, but haven't for many years, presumably due to the drought. There was also a herd of wayward goats when we first moved into our house which had no qualms about strolling down into our yard in the search of tasty tidbits. They are also gone now.

serval - pixabay

The land is now completely free for all kinds of wild animals to roam, which I absolutely love. Every now and then we take a walk in the hills so I know there are porcupines, as I have seen their quills. Once we even saw baboon spoor and droppings, which was slightly alarming as they can be quite mean. We spot little buck fairly regularly, but earlier this year I was beside myself with excitement. Directly opposite our glass sliding door I saw a serval for the very first time, and what a magnificent creature it is!

serval - pixabay

A serval is an wild african cat, common in southern Africa, though I haven't seen one before. It is characterised by long legs and large ears. They are about 54cm-62cm tall and weigh anywhere from 9-18kg. Their fur is golden toned and they have both black spots and stripes. And they are unbelievably beautiful. I suspect that the sighting of these creatures is due to the drought. Firstly the grasses are not as high and as abundant as they usually are, and secondly they might need to sneak into domestic properties in search of water. I am a cat lover, and we have three at home. Sadly recently reduced from four.

We have a suspicion that the cat we lost could well have been a victim of the serval. Our cat was an African Wild Cat. A few years ago someone dropped a little kitten at our home. It was not particularly friendly, but my daughter (@yogidream.scapes) loved it, and kept it in her room for months. We were not aware that she was an indigenous cat, but during a biology lesson at school, my daughter was told that a cat who had black foot pads was probably a wild cat. This made a lot of sense to us, as she did not enjoy being indoors very much and was a lethal hunter. She constantly brought rats and birds and quite horrifically, the occasional rabbit as presents for the other cats, as well as for us. She was very generous. (My apologies to the neighbour who owned rabbits!)

Cat (her name) now immortalised in the block chain - original photo

A couple of months ago we heard a lot of strange noises. Someone suggested they may have been made by porcupines. The noises culminated in a racket that woke us all up, and then abruptly came to an end. I suspect there was a turf war between our wild cat and the serval, with our cat on the losing end. (I miss her SO much!) Which eventually leads me to last nights events. While cooking supper, after I came home from work, my daughter suddenly called me to the window. She thought she saw a rabbit near a small area of foliage on our property line. I thought that odd, as rabbits would not be able to survive in the veld.

african wildcat - image: http://mpalalive.org/field_guide/african_wildcat

Suddenly, and very briefly, we saw it, a serval kitten! And then we heard the mother calling it, a truly eerie sound. Mom serval was training baby serval to take it's first steps towards independence. We also noticed that our remaining three cats refused to go outside for the rest of the evening and were exceedingly nervous. We are so privileged to experience this beauty right outside our very home!