Selected bird news from Nial Moores with Distinguished Professors Joanna Burger and Michael Gochfeld and Iain Campbell
A quick tour of some of the ROK’s better-known and lesser-known birding sites, including a major shorebird roost on Yeongjong Island; Seosan Lake A (sadly largely devoid of birds on the day of our visit); Sura Wetland within Saemangeum; Eocheong Island; the Seocheon Getbol; and the Yeoncheon Imjin River Biosphere Reserve.
The outstanding highlight was watching a pair of Critically Endangered Chinese Crested Tern for 90 minutes, with obvious courtship behaviour by “PA”, banded in the ROK and subsequently photographed in Qingdao, and (presumably his) mate, including a courtship flight, strutting, begging (with PA squatting low on the ground, wagging his body to make a shallow scrape in the sand), extended bathing and extended preening. Unfortunately, most of the video clips are too long to post here.
Further highlights included close encounters with globally Vulnerable Chinese Egrets and large flocks of shorebirds at several sites, including thousands of globally Endangered Great Knot and Far Eastern Curlew (and more distant views of globally Endangered Nordmann’s Greenshank at two sites); globally Vulnerable Sharp-tailed Sandpipers at Sura and Little Whimbrel at Simpo; a good diversity of migrants, including a stunning male Siberian Rubythroat and a Grey-backed Thrush coming to meal worms on Eocheong; several breeding-plumaged Ancient Murrelet and small pods of globally Endangered Narrow-ridged Finless Porpoise from the boat back to Gunsan (with a likely Minke Whale seen blowing or spouting); and cryptic Long-billed Plovers, ornate Mandarin Ducks and glowing Yellow-rumped Flycatchers singing in Yeoncheon.
The week also provided enough moments for a book full of reflections. On the positive end of this vast spectrum it was a real pleasure to see and meet some younger birders enjoying migration on Eocheong (including Mr Yoon Heon, who very kindly shared some of his images for this post) – but at the same time saddening to know that numbers of birds are now much lower than when I first visited. It was also shocking to see the state of the place. Eocheong was once a really pretty island, with small arable plots and fruit trees, and a stream. Now most open areas are stacked with garbage, there are high numbers of feral cats, and often-exhausted birds were concentrated largely where birders provided water or food (an important initiative led by Dr Sung Sooyoung to reduce the numbers of birds dying on the island during spring) .
Similarly, it was wonderful to revisit the Seocheong Getbol – once a planned industrial site and now a natural World Heritage property; and also to see several thousand shorebirds still at the now-famous Sura Wetland in Saemangeum, and to know there are many people campaigning for this area’s protection. At the same time, it was deeply saddening to see how much has already been lost there – the 300,000 shorebirds at Saemangeum reduced down by 98%; and advanced plans for yet another airport right in the heart of what remains.
The final rumination: we all need a healthy planet. It has already taken many people over many generations to gather the necessary data to identify solutions to problems that if enacted would provide benefits to everybody and to every species. For us to win in this long struggle to overcome our greed and apathy – as just one species now responsible for the survival of millions of others – our passion, dedication and enthusiasm for the conservation of biodiversity still needs to be, now and forever into the future, at least as infectious as it is evidence-based. Thank you professors for the inspiration!
