Exploring Pigeon Valley: The Klaas’s Cuckoo
The riches of Pigeon Valley Nature Reserve explained by Glenwood resident and chair of the Friends of Pigeon Valley.
This is the 22nd in an ongoing series that highlights the riches of Pigeon Valley, the urban nature reserve in the heart of Glenwood. The focus of this article will be on the Klaas’s Cuckoo.
In this series, I try to focus on sights and sounds I have just encountered in Pigeon Valley. On Saturday, on our monthly walk, we were treated to a marvellous array of birds in the one open section near the entrance. Starring in particular were the male Purple-banded Sunbirds and a male Klaas’s Cuckoo that arrived to serenade us.
This is the only Cuckoo species that is present in winter in this area – in fact, the whole year round. Its meitjie-meitjie call is unmistakeable. The species breeds successfully in Pigeon Valley, but, of course, the parents do not take care of the young. That is left to species like Collared Sunbirds and Dusky Flycatchers. I recall a perpetually demanding call and finding an exhausted Collared Sunbird struggling to feed a juvenile.
ALSO READ: Exploring Pigeon Valley: The African Gladiolus
About 18 months ago I was watching a diminutive Dusky Flycatcher, less than a metre from me, that flew back and forth to catch insects that it transported to a constantly piping young Klaas’s Cuckoo above it, perhaps the bird in the photo. It gave the impression of pride in its relatively huge young – it seemed not to know that it was an imposter.
However, there is some research that the hatchlings of cuckoo species are good at deterring predators that attack the nests of their hosts – so maybe there are some benefits after all. For us, of course, there is the beauty of this remarkable family of birds.
Crispin Hemson chairs the Friends of Pigeon Valley, a group that undertakes clearing of alien plants, keeps records of bird and mammal sightings and alerts management to any problems.
The Friends have a monthly walk at 7.30am on the second Saturday of each month. Email: friendsofpigeonvalley1@gmail.com.
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