{"id":1137,"date":"2011-07-22T17:46:24","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T08:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=1137"},"modified":"2013-04-16T20:29:24","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T11:29:24","slug":"nam-cheon-july-21st","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=1137","title":{"rendered":"Nam Cheon, July 21"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bird News by Barry Heinrich<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n

I was allowed to go home early yesterday, at 2.30pm.<\/p>\n

Considering there was a break in what has been rather inclement weather, and with plenty of time, I decided to walk from home to Nam Cheon, down to the coast, then north to Buk Cheon and back home again from there. The walk took me a bit over 4 hours with several delays to see and photograph various wildlife.<\/p>\n

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\nCommon Greenshanks Tringa nebularia<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At first my walk seemed a bit dull with just Tree Sparrows<\/strong>, Oriental Reed Warblers<\/strong> and a Siberian Stonechat<\/strong> along the first part of Nam Cheon. Adding an Oriental Turtle Dove<\/strong> and a couple of Striated Herons<\/strong> didn’t make things a lot brighter. Then I found 6 young Mandarin Ducks<\/strong> and 7 Eastern Spot-billed Ducks<\/strong> along the flooded creek. They all took cover in the long grass as soon as they saw me. The two Common Greenshanks<\/strong> were more cooperative and I took all the photos I wanted of them, both with my zoom lense and with my digiscope.<\/p>\n

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\nEurasian Hobby<\/strong> Falco subbuteo<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My next target was a Eurasian Hobby<\/strong> that obligingly sat on top of an electricity pole while I took as many photos of it as I wanted getting close enough for almost full frame shots using the digiscope. I was next to a thick patch of grass under the electricity cables taking Hobby photos when I notice a few young Tree Frogs<\/strong>. It was then that I regretted leaving my macro lense at home, but I still managed to get some acceptable images using my large zoom and my small zoom lenses. I counted about 30 of these froglets in about three square metres enjoying the afternoon sunshine.<\/p>\n

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Heading north didn’t show me a lot more birds, 5 Grey Herons<\/strong>, 2 Eastern Great Egrets<\/strong> and more Tree Sparrows<\/strong>. Along a small concrete drainage ditch I heard the distresses cries of a frog. The ditch was a bit overgrown with grass but I managed to find what I think was a Water Snake<\/strong> with a good sized Black-spotted Pond Frog<\/strong> in its mouth hanging into the ditch. I got one acceptable photo looking through the grass, but when I tried to clear the grass away for a better view, the snake dropped into the water in the bottom of the ditch. At Buk Cheon I saw about 120 Black-tailed Gulls<\/strong>, a few Vega Gulls<\/strong>, 7 Great Cormorants<\/strong>, 6 Grey Herons<\/strong> and 3 Spot-billed Ducks<\/strong> on the sandbar.<\/p>\n

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I didn’t see many more birds until I found a Black-capped Kingfisher<\/strong> at the hill where the Egrets and Herons nest each year. I had a little walk through the forest on the hill before heading back to Buk Cheon. The Kingfisher was sitting on a wire near near the creek and I was just about close enough to get photos with my digiscope equipment. I had it all set up and was just focusing on the bird when it flew away. Another couple of seconds would have been enough to get some photos.<\/p>\n

I didn’t see a lot more until I got to the new highway. I found about 20 Grey-capped Greenfinches<\/strong> there. I think they were eating the insect larvae that roll the edge of leaves on Robinia pseudoacaia<\/em> trees. At the Buk Cheon weir there was a Striated Heron<\/strong> and two Grey Wagtails<\/strong>. A little further along I saw about 30 more Grey-capped Greenfinches<\/strong>, this time feeding on seeds of Coreopsis lanceolata<\/em> flowers growing on the side of the new highway.<\/p>\n

From there I decided to head home along the ridge track to the northeast of Ganseong Eup. As I climbed up the embankment to the top of the ridge I found some Eastern Great Tits<\/strong>. I think they were feeding on the small black insect larvae that were eating the leaves of some regenerating shrubs. There were some Yellow-throated Buntings<\/strong> in the same area and I could hear a couple of Grey-backed Thrushes<\/strong> singing to the east in the forest. There were more Tree Sparrows at the top opf the ridge. As I walked along the ridge track I found two Tiger Shrikes<\/strong>. They both had food in their bills so they must have had young nearby. I also saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker<\/strong>, Brown-eared Bulbuls<\/strong>, Black-naped Orioles<\/strong> and Barn Swallows<\/strong> as I went along the ridge. It was getting close to 7 pm when I heard something moving in the low vegetation off the track. Carefully approaching a small partly cleared are I saw a family of 5 Racoon Dogs<\/strong>. I was lucky enough to get a couple of photos of two before they disappeared into cover.<\/p>\n

In the last bit of foest at the edge of town I found a couple of Daurian Redstarts<\/strong>, more Tree Sparrows<\/strong>, a Dollarbird <\/strong>and a Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker<\/strong>. In all I had quite a nice time on my free afternoon and I got some nice photos. I really get up to some mischief when they let me out early, don’t I?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bird News by Barry Heinrich I was allowed to go home early yesterday, at 2.30pm. Considering there was a break in what has been rather inclement weather, and with plenty of time, I decided to walk from home to Nam … read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[72],"class_list":["post-1137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-sightings","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1137"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8397,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1137\/revisions\/8397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}