Songdo 30-31 August

Birds News from Spike Millington

The tides were quite good for checking the shorebirds at Gojan mudflats. The highlight was a Pectoral Sandpiper on 30 Aug.

Counts were:

Black-faced Spoonbill (60)

Grey Plover (750)

Mongolian Plover (200)

Bar-tailed Godwit (200, including Yellow Flag DRS from Australia, who has been present about a month now)

Great Knot (20, mostly juvs)

Red Knot (1)

Pectoral Sandpiper (1)

Ruddy Turnstone (3)

Terek Sandpiper (only 10, most have left since early August)

Whimbrel (10+)

Far Eastern Curlew (200)

Eurasian Curlew (500)

Dunlin (250)

Broad-billed Sandpiper (50)

Red-necked Stint (1)

Saunders’s Gull (5 – always very few this time of year)

Nearby Namdong Reservoir was crammed with birds – an estimated 1,600 shorebirds. But all different species from Gojan (only one species found on both – any guesses?)

Black-faced Spoonbill (30)

Grey Heron (10)

Spot-billed Duck (500  – an autumn build-up)

Garganey (8)

Common Teal (3)

Pacific Golden Plover (32, nearly all adults – my first for Songdo)

Little Ringed Plover (1)

Black-tailed Godwit (350)

Common Greenshank (1,000)

Common Redshank (20)

Spotted Redshank (1)

Marsh Sandpiper (50, maybe more)

Common Snipe (4)

Green Sandpiper (5)

Wood Sandpiper (100)

Common Sandpiper (5)

Long-toed Stint (6)

Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (1)

Other than waterbirds, a Siberian Weasel slipped across the path and a splendid male Japanese Grosbeak was singing from a tree in the adjacent small park.