{"id":11478,"date":"2014-01-01T17:01:40","date_gmt":"2014-01-01T08:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=11478"},"modified":"2014-01-01T17:01:40","modified_gmt":"2014-01-01T08:01:40","slug":"nakdong-estuary-junam-reservoirs-december-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=11478","title":{"rendered":"Nakdong Estuary & Junam Reservoirs, December 30"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bird News from Nial Moores and Jason Loghry<\/strong><\/p>\n

In continuing settled, sunny and mild conditions (with a low of -1C and a high of +8C), a couple of hours at dawn and dusk at the Nakdong Estuary and the remainder of the day at Junam, where a third of the reservoirs\u2019 surface remains unfrozen.<\/p>\n

At the Nakdong Estuary, first highlight (lowlight!) before sunrise was an apparent\u00a0fuscus<\/i>-type\u00a0Lesser Black-backed Gull<\/i>\u00a0sitting on the water with\u00a0c.<\/i>500 other gulls (NM only), Swaro-scoped at\u00a0c.<\/i>\u00a0150m range. Unfortunately it was seen only for 10 seconds at rest on the water and then through the \u2018scope in flight for a further 15 seconds or so as the gull flock flew out of the estuary \u2013 and could not be re-found in the evening. There are no images and its identity must remain open to question. At rest, the bird was slightly smaller than\u00a0Vega Gull<\/i>, with a more elongated structure, recalling\u00a0Taimyr Gull<\/i>. The head showed some streaking on the nape and around the eye. Overall, there was only a very weak contrast between the primaries and the rest of the dark of the upperparts, and it was thus strikingly darker than 3-4\u00a0Slaty-backed<\/b>, six or so\u00a0Taimyr<\/b>\u00a0and\u00a0c<\/i>. 40\u00a0Black-tailed Gulls<\/b>\u00a0in direct comparison. In flight, there was a hint of a small mirror on P10, but the rest of the upperwing (with the exception of the secondary trail) simply looked dark, with no suggestion of a string of pearls or contrasting paler tongues in the primary black. The tail was clean white. The bill showed no obvious dark markings and the legs were not seen. Also in the estuary, in addition to 2000+ large gulls, 1000+\u00a0Whooper Swan<\/b>, two\u00a0Tundra Swan<\/b>, two (presumed)\u00a0Black-faced Spoonbill<\/b>, between three and ten\u00a0Swan Geese<\/b>, 2-3\u00a0White-tailed Eagle<\/b>, 2-3\u00a0Hen Harrier<\/b>\u00a0and rarest in the Korean context one First Calendar-year\u00a0Steller\u2019s Sea Eagle<\/b>, one (NM) or two (JL)\u00a0Eastern Marsh Harrier<\/b>\u00a0and two\u00a0Relict Gull<\/b>\u00a0(one First-winter and one Second-winter).<\/p>\n

At the Junam Reservoirs, no sign of the\u00a0Siberian Chiffchaff<\/i>\u00a0found here 2-3 days earlier by Philippe Dubois, but instead excellent views of a diverse range of waterbirds including several hundred \u201clarge-end\u201d\u00a0middendorff<\/i>i\u00a0Taiga Bean Geese<\/b>, five\u00a0Baikal Teal<\/b>, 30+\u00a0Falcated Duck<\/b>, one\u00a0Mandarin<\/b>, four\u00a0Swan Geese<\/b>, 80+\u00a0White-naped\u00a0<\/b>and twoHooded Cranes<\/b>. Rarest in the domestic context was a First-winter\u00a0Mute Swan<\/b>. The second ID curiosity of the day was provided by a presumed super-bleached immature\u00a0White-tailed Eagle<\/b>\u00a0seen only in flight, initially down to 100m or so. It was poorly-digiscoped (at >1km range) as it started to soar. Unlike the two other\u00a0White-tailed Eagle<\/b>\u00a0which were present \u2013 and more importantly unlike many hundreds seen over the years \u2013 this super-pale sea-eagle, although it seemed not obviously dissimilar to\u00a0White-tailed<\/i>\u00a0in structure, had a dark head contrasting with an off-white breast and belly; white or off-white axillaries, with white extending across much of the greater coverts on the underwing; off-white back and upperwing coverts; and a tail which was a mix of white and dark, with a darker tail band. Unlike the gull earlier in the day, this distinctive-looking individual\u00a0should be<\/i>\u00a0relatively easy to re-find!<\/p>\n

\"Eastern-Marsh-Harrier_NM\"<\/a>Eastern Marsh Harrier<\/b>\u00a0Circus spilonotus<\/i>, \u00a9 Nial Moores<\/p>\n

\"Taiga-Bean-Goose_NM-1\"<\/a>Taiga Bean Goose<\/b>\u00a0Anser fabalis<\/i>, \u00a9 Nial Moores<\/p>\n

\"Taiga-Bean-Goose_NM-2\"<\/a>Taiga Bean Goose<\/b>\u00a0Anser fabalis<\/i>, \u00a9 Nial Moores<\/p>\n

\"Mute-Swan_NM\"<\/a>Mute Swan<\/b>\u00a0Cygnus olor<\/i>, \u00a9 Nial Moores<\/p>\n

\"White-tailed-Eagle_NM\"<\/a>White-tailed Eagle<\/b>\u00a0Haliaeetus albicilla<\/i>, \u00a9 Nial Moores<\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bird News from Nial Moores and Jason Loghry In continuing settled, sunny and mild conditions (with a low of -1C and a high of +8C), a couple of hours at dawn and dusk at the Nakdong Estuary and the remainder … 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":[509,66],"class_list":["post-11478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-sightings","tag-junam-reservoir","tag-nakdong-estuary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478","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=11478"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11484,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11478\/revisions\/11484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}