Update from SARBN - Madagascan Cuckoo at Soetdoring NR

[Trevor Hardaker]

MADAGASCAN CUCKOO – still present at Soetdoring Nature Reserve near Bloemfontein (Free State) this morning – reported by CW Vermeulen.

 

For those of you that are still wanting to try and see this bird, special permission has now been arranged for birders to access the reserve to go and see the bird. However, it comes with some rather strict conditions. The powers that be want to know up front how many birders will be coming into the reserve on each day and there will also only be one access time per day, probably at 8am in the morning, so one will have to arrange your travel accordingly. Only those birders who have advised that they are coming on a particular day will be allowed in and there will be no-one else in the reserve.

 

In order to try and manage this, CW Vermeulen has agreed to take on the admin involved so, if anyone wants to twitch this bird, please make contact via WhatsApp with CW at +27 82 824 9308 to let him know that you want to access the reserve to twitch the bird, how many people are in your group (with names) and also which day you are planning on coming through. He will then let you know all the other specific details and you will then need to arrange your travelling accordingly to ensure that you can get there at the specified time. Once the specified time has come and the group of birders have been let in, no other birders will be allowed in after that on the day, so it is imperative that you get there on time.

 

Thanks to CW for going to the trouble of arranging this special permission for twitchers to get to see the bird and also for agreeing to take on the admin involved.

 

Hopefully, many of you can now still get to see this mega bird while it is still around.

 

Good luck!

 

Kind regards

Trevor