Nial Moores with Team Thai
On our last day together, we headed to a well-known area of forest near Seoul to see if we could find any Hazel Grouse, a widespread, stunningly-patterned but often hard-to-see species here. With excellent directions (thanks again to fellow Birds Koreans!), we arrived in what is considered to be the the best area. Thanks no doubt too to a local birder who generously puts out grain for birds throughout the winter and to the warm spring weather, we were soon treated to excellent views of an unusually confiding male, first singing from near the canopy, then feeding on the ground, before vanishing back into the forest.
An hour or two later (filled with good views of Great Spotted, White-backed, Grey-headed and Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers), a Hazel Grouse off in the distance started to call repeatedly. This provoked an immediate and quite spectacular response: an “imposing display” of calling, tail-fanning and wing-spreading from a much closer bird (initially too close to digiscope!)…All images taken with a handheld Sony RX 100II through a superb Swarovski scope – and not in response to use of playback (with thanks to JL for editing and loading the video clips).
Hazel Grouse Tetrastes bonasia, March 22nd © Nial Moores
The day finished with the incoming tide at Yeongjong, where surrounded by disturbance and construction, we were nonetheless still able to see a breeding-plumaged Black-faced Spoonbill and 30+ breeding-plumaged Saunders’s Gull, and enjoy good views of c. 150 Far Eastern Curlew and the personal first 5+ Bar-tailed Godwit of the spring.
Birders, fishers and many people who love being outdoors already know just how valuable these life-rich tidal-flats are in their natural state, both to birds and people. When will Incheon City, the nation and decision-makers in the Yellow Sea as a whole finally realise it too?