Trip 1 - September 2010
On Monday the 20th September 2010, on my way back to Johannesburg from Klerkskraal Dam on the N14 I had to take the detour to Carltonville as the N14 is closed. When I turned left onto the R500 and headed north I came across a dam/wetland area (GPS Co-ordinates: 26°12'42.81"S, 27°26'04.63"E) where the R500 intersects with the R41. It has real potential as a birding spot. There seems to be just one road that leads down to the waters edge and it is off the R500 and leads to a second dam. I did not have much time on my hands so I just scanned the dam and took these pics from the road at various points.

Here is a scenery pic that I took on the R41 about 100 metres from the intersection (followed by an image from Google Earth):

Even though I could only scan the water from a distance, here is what I saw: White-faced Duck, Red-knobbed coot, African Darter, Greater Flamingo, African Spoonbill, Spur-winged Goose, Egyptian Goose, Sacred Ibis and Yellow-billed Duck. There were lots more interesting shapes dotted all over the shoreline and on the water.

Trip 2 - January 2012
In January 2012 a breaking news report was sent out by Trevor Hardaker informing the birding community that an African Skimmer had been located at De Pan. I left home as soon as I got the report. This bird had only been seen in South Africa 8 times in the past decade. We arrived at the pan to find a number of other birders enjoying the sighting of this rare bird in South Africa. It stayed quite far from the shoreline on some rocks but did eventually fly up and down a little before settling on another rock. Here are the best images I was able to get given the stormy weather conditions and the large distance between me and the bird:

Trip 3 - January 2012
I returned to this spot on my day off in January hoping to catch another sight of the Skimmer but it had left the spot. One of the highlights was seeing a flock of over 200 Black-winged Pratincole flying around the pan:

Here is a selection of other birds that I managed to photograph around the pan: