Bird heading west across a South African village (5)
I believe the answer is:
kraal
'south african village' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'bird heading west across a' is the wordplay.
'bird' becomes 'lark' (lark is a kind of bird**).
'heading west' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'across' is an insertion indicator.
'lark' reversed gives 'kral'.
'kral' enclosing 'a' is 'KRAAL'.
(Other definitions for kraal that I've seen before include "Fenced settlement" , "African hutted village" , "Traditional African village" , "village community" , "African hut-village" .)