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We left Middelburg just after 5am on Saturday morning and first drove past Wonderfontein pans to see what we could find. The usual crowd of Red-knobbed coots were around but Grey heron, Red-billed teal, Yellow-billed duck, a pair of Maccoa ducks, Wood sandpipers, Whiskered terns and lots of swallows were around. No flamingoes though.Down to Chrissiesmeer we drove, arriving in the town some time after 7am. We immediately took the farm road leading towards the large Chrissiesmeer lake. It was overcast and cool, and with a very full dam we knew we were not going to see hundreds of birds. But we did get the odd swamphen or two, Southern red- and Yellow-crowned bishops, a Black-shouldered kite harassing an immature Martial eagle, lots of Steppe buzzards and a few Jackal buzzards as well. White stork shared recently cut fields with Black-headed herons and two Goliath herons were spotted on the grass islands close to shore. Just past the main dam we saw what first looked like just another Amur falcon, but getting closer I noticed the bird had barring instead of streaking on the chest. Closer still and I recognized we had something else here. A quick scan of the field guide and there it was - Eurasian hobby! Another lifer!
Further down the road there wasn't much else and when we reached the tar road we turned east and about 12km down the road turned on another farm road back towards Chrissiesmeer. We added Cape shoveler, Banded martin and a Common moorhen before getting back to Chrissiesmeer - a tally of 63 birds for the day. Just before noon we headed back home.
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