Klaas’s Cuckoo (Chrysococcyx klaas)
For the last month I have been hearing the may-i-kie-may-i-kie call of the male Klaas’s Cuckoo in my garden. Eventually in-between all the rain, I got a chance to get outside to hopefully photograph the bird. Luck was to be on my side that day and I happened to stumbled across what looked like a male cuckoo feeding a young cuckoo caterpillars. This to me was very strange behaviour and after bit of research and help from other birders, I came to learn that this was courtship feeding. So in fact, this was an adult male cuckoo trying to impress a young female cuckoo by feeding her caterpillars which he had plucked from a small tree called a Glossy Currant Searsia lucida.
This was my first time I have ever seen a female Klaas’s Cuckoo and it proves how you don’t always have to travel far to enjoy the marvels of nature.
Cuckoos are known as brood parasites, which mean that they lay their eggs in specific host’s nest. This is made possible by the male distracting the host and allowing the female cuckoo the opportunity to lay her similar looking egg in the host’s clutch of eggs.
The Cape Batis and Bar-Throated Apalis are known to be regular hosts of the Klaas’s Cuckoo.
Emerald, Red-Chested, Black and Dideric Cuckoos can be seen in the Plettenberg Bay area from October/November.
Listen to the Klaas’s Cuckoo call on the Africam website link
References:
Beat about the Bush Birds by Trevor Carnaby – Jacana Media-2008
Roberts Nest and Eggs of Southern African Birds by Warwick Tarboton – John Voelcker Book Fund – 2011
Field Guide to Trees of Southern Africa by Braam van Wyk and Piet van Wyk – Struik Publishers -1997
Regards
Gareth Robbins
info@goldenorbtours.co.za
082 5253 946