Shaun Smillie | 27
January, 2016 00:42
A little bird lost is
causing a huge flutter.
More than 600 people,
some from as far as Cape Town, have come to Johannesburg to get a glimpse of a
bird that is not quite the size of a chicken.
The bird is a spotted
crake and it has pitched up at a pond at Waterfall Estate, Midrand.
Spotted crakes, said
Trevor Hardaker, chairman of Bird Life SA's rarities committee, usually migrate
only as far south as Zambia or Zimbabwe. But this one kept on going.
It is not the only one.
It has been a strange summer for spotted crakes.
There have been sightings
of at least a dozen crakes around the country.
The rarities committee
tracks sightings of rare birds and was notified of the Midrand crake on
Thursday.
"They are normally
reclusive but this one is parading around in the open," said Hardaker.
The wayward spotted crake
and its far-roaming fellows, such as the snowy egret that visited Cape Town
last year, are helping to generate tourist dollars.
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