On Monday the 8th of November after a trip to Loskop Dam Nature Reserve I headed north on the N4 for 52 kilometers from the R575 turn off to Middleburg and took a right turn onto the R33 to Carolina. A further 10 kilometers along this road brings you to what is known as Wonderfontein Pans - a series of three shallow pans next to the road with a great selection of water birds and waders.

Here is the scene that will greet you as you approach the three pans on the R33 - pan 1 is on the right, then pan 2 is on the left and pan 3 is on the right in the distance.

The first Pan is bone dry at the moment, but will surely come alive again after good rains in the area. There is a turn to "Klippan" to the right which will give you this view of the pan:

The second Pan is a few hundred meters further down the R33 on the right hand side of the road - and it is so close to the road that you can use your vehicle as a hide and get up close to the birds that are close to the edge of the pan. Here is a pic of the dam:

The third Pan is on the right hand side of the road and you can access it by driving up to the homestead and chat with Mama Letty who will gladly give you permission to walk around the pan (I gave her a little token of my appreciation for the access and she was overjoyed - hey, it cost me R65 to bird Loskop so I gladly parted with some hard earned cash to bird her little "nature reserve"). She asked me what we birding folk do with our pics - whether we put it in a book - and I shared how it is "just" a hobby and we show them on our computers and the Internet (I think I may have lost her when I mentioned the Internet!). Here is a wide angle shot of this pan (and some other scenery shots, including one of Mama Letty standing at her front door):

Okay, so I went there to do some birding and not just shoot the scenery - here are some of the highlights of my hour at the spot on a Monday afternoon from around 3 to 4. I started at Pan 1 where I saw Red-knobbed Coot, amazing up close sighting of White-backed Duck (that I have only seen once before - I hoped they would fly off but they never did so I could not get a shot of their white-backs as I did on the previous occasion that I saw them), Grey Heron, Black-headed Heron (on the far side of the pan - out of my range - where are the big guys with their 30000000mm lenses when I need it?), Ruff Marsh Sandpiper, Common Greenshank, Wood Sandpiper, Red-knobbed Coot, Southern Pochard, Cape Shoveler (the juvenile looks like a clown to me!), Black-winged Stilt, Yellow-billed Duck, Little Swift, Barn Swallow and Whiskered Tern. The little pan was alive with birds!!!

Here are some shots of waders that I spotted (the poor quality flying shots are just to confirm id's):

Here are some shots of Ducks that I spotted:

There were only 2 Heron around - Black-headed and Grey:

Here are a few shots of the air traffic above the pan:

I loved watching a little duel between two Little Grebe play out right in front of me:

I then drove up to the homestead, chatted with Mama Letty and her family for a while before taking a walk around the third pan. Here I saw: Red-billed Teal, Southern Pochard, Grey-headed Gull (I took about 20 shots of this gull thinking it was something special - maybe the long day in the sun fried my brain a bit - I felt rather foolish when I processed my pics and it was "just" a grey-headed gull - I will blame my small viewing screen on my Olympus E-500 and the harsh afternoon sunlight!!!), Spur-winged Goose, a few other little waders that I never got close enough to positively identified, but Little Stint were certainly present, and lots of noisy Blacksmith Lapwing. There is a small section of reeds where Southern Masked Weavers were foraging. It was harder to get up close to the birds on foot than it was birding from the roadside at pan 2! Also, if you walk to the far corner of the pan you will see an opening that leads to another connected pan!

A great little spot to bird - I saw 22 bird species in my short time there!