Bird News from Jason Loghry with Lee Eunjae
A short trip to Goeje turned out to be quite interesting. First birds of the day were two Ashy Minivet – or were they Ryukyu?! singing near the main road. Regretfully, I assumed Ashy after seeing some contrast between the dark crown and the grey mantle, without realizing the date was quite late. I didn’t take notes nor did get a sound recording. Sigh. Big Sigh. Soon after, we drove by what seemed to be good-looking habitat – so we had a look. It was indeed. Right away we were surprised to find a Black Woodpigeon. Soon after we were greeted by a pair of Black Paradise Flycatcher.
In hopes of finding a Pitta, we moved on along the trail deeper into the woods. There were a few Pale Thrush, Black-naped Oriole, Asian Stubtail, several singing Lesser Cuckoo and a couple of singing Blue and White Flycatchers. We were startled by fierce sounding growl. It turned out to be a Wild Boar that was taking a rest just two meters from where we stood. It was probably as startled as we were. On our way out, we were very excited to see a Fairy Pitta, but only for a brief moment, then it was gone. We checked a few other places on the island, but nothing better than this first trail.