BIRDING . . . WHAT A LIFER: Soutpan, in search of the elusive Baillon's Crake. . .

Water everywhere is what comes to mind when thinking of Soutpan in the heart of the Free State, at least at the moment. And with all the water there is an amazing amount of waterbirds in the area with fast amounts of Ducks, Geese, Moorhens, Coots, Stilts and Avocets.

Common Moorhen

One of the primary reasons to visit the area was to try and find the Baillon's Crake which have been spotted at the pan on numerous occasions the last couple of weeks. Yet after three separate trips we still could not find it.

Not that any one of these trips where a waste of time as we witnessed a wonderful spectacle, a once in a lifetime event for the Free State. In total we saw 87 species with lots of great memories among them. Barbet added 13 lifers to her list, while I added 8!

Al the Malachite Kingfishers about the area surely has to count as one. At one point we had six or seven of these beautiful birds in the same tree. Not to mention all the other individual sightings which would amount to probably twenty times the amount of Malachite's I've ever seen combined!

Malachite Kingfisher

As I've mentioned earlier ducks where in abundance and not a minute would go by without seeing or hearing some. These Fulvous Ducks where one of the newbies on our life list.

Fulvous Ducks

What was quite interesting to see was how certain species tended to stick to certain areas of the pan, like these Southern Pochard's which where found predominantly on the Western side of the pan.

Southern Pochard

What I believed to be Zitting Cisticola's where also around usually in pairs.

Zitting Cisticola

Then another one of the amazing spectacles around where hundreds of the Black-winged Stilts.

Black-winged Stilt

About ten Whiskered Terns where catching fish towards the center of the pan while a pair of African Fish-Eagles where calling from the Southern end of the pan.