{"id":15743,"date":"2015-05-28T01:36:24","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T16:36:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=15743"},"modified":"2015-06-02T16:09:51","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T07:09:51","slug":"gageo-island-may-23-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=15743","title":{"rendered":"Gageo Island, May 23-24"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bird News from Subhojit Chakladar<\/strong><\/p>\n

The journey from Mokpo over extraordinarily calm seas had nothing of note till a few km from Gageo when murrelets<\/em> appeared by the dozens. Most of them were Ancient Murrelets<\/strong> with a few distant probable Crested Murrelets<\/strong>. The island itself was pretty quiet overall but it did have a few highlights. More on that later. First a few words on the changing scenery. Till last year, Gageo was a remote, far flung island closer to China and the Okinawa than to Seoul, that attracted birders and the more ambitious of anglers. But since then, there has been a steady trickle of more regular weekend tourist who brave the 4 hour long journey. This has given a boost to the local economy but I hope the island and its rugged natural beauty is left as it is – for the sake of the islanders themselves and also for tourists who seek the charm of a remote island. The once productive quarry region is already being colonized by construction machinery.<\/p>\n

Back to birds …. the mossy slab had a Mongolian Plover<\/strong>, a Common Sandpiper<\/strong> and a Little Egret<\/strong>. There was a taivana<\/em> Eastern Yellow Wagtail<\/strong> at the garbage dump. There was a steady stream of Red-rumped Swallows<\/strong> moving in from the east along with a supporting cast of Barn Swallows<\/strong> and Pacific Swifts<\/strong>. Raptors consisted of quite a few Chinese Sparrowhawks<\/strong>, a couple Eurasian Sparrowhawks<\/strong> and a distant Oriental Honey Buzzard<\/strong>. Around the quarry, there were a few Tiger Shrikes<\/strong> and Dollarbirds<\/strong> along with Light-vented Bulbuls<\/strong> locked in battle for territorial control with the Brown-eared Bulbuls<\/strong>. Coming down towards the village, flycatchers<\/strong> – mostly Grey-streaked<\/strong> along with a few Asian Browns<\/strong> were actively hunting. The Japanese White-eyes<\/strong> were also enjoying juicy caterpillars. A few Arctic Warblers<\/strong> were also seen. 3 Richard’s Pipits<\/strong> were flushed from the fields in front of the pension, A few Chinese Pond Herons<\/strong> were seen flying around. Later in the afternoon, I slowly hiked towards 2-gu (greeted by a steady streams of tourists in high spirits returning from the lighthouse). On the road to the “pass”, there were some interesting birds on the wires. First was a group of 3 Black Drongos<\/strong>, followed by a flock of 15 Chinese Grosbeaks<\/strong> with a Daurian Starling<\/strong> . Once on the road to 2-gu, cuckoo calls became more frequent (though most of them remained unseen). An Amur Falcon<\/strong> was seen coming off the sea as also a hepatic form cuckoo (distant and silent). Common<\/strong> and Lesser Cuckoos<\/strong> were active near 1-gu while Indian Cuckoos<\/strong> were more common near the 2-gu village, Black-naped Orioles<\/strong> were also very vocal. The Hangri village in 2-gu had a couple of Brown Shrikes<\/strong>, an Oriental Reed Warbler<\/strong>, a Dusky Warbler<\/strong>, a few Stejneger’s Stonechats<\/strong> and Dark-sided Flycatchers<\/strong>. I stayed there till about sunset and then retraced my steps to 1-gu. On the way back, the haunting calls of Black Woodpigeon<\/strong> (and the empty road) brought back the “old Gageo”. Well past sundown, close to the “pass”, an owl (most likely a Boobook<\/em>) was seen coming off the see. It momentarily perched on the wires before moving into the forested slope.<\/p>\n

Next day I woke up before dawn to the sound of barking dogs. A Lesser Cuckoo<\/strong> was going berserk and the dogs seemed to be trying to mimic its calls (at least the tone)! Amidst this cacophony, there was a soothingly familiar sound. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that an Asian Koel<\/strong> is singing!! It continued to sing till about 05:15am and then went silent. I failed to locate it once it was light. On 24th, there were even fewer birds in evidence but a second highlight of the day came in form a Red Collared Dove<\/strong> seen on the wires near the garbage dump and later seen flying around. New arrivals in the quarry were a Chestnut-eared Bunting<\/strong> and a couple of Middendorff’s Warblers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_7043\"<\/a>

Daurian Starling<\/strong>, Sturnus sturninus<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bird News from Subhojit Chakladar The journey from Mokpo over extraordinarily calm seas had nothing of note till a few km from Gageo when murrelets appeared by the dozens. Most of them were Ancient Murrelets with a few distant probable … read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":12914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[806,253],"class_list":["post-15743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-sightings","tag-asian-koel","tag-gageo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15743","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\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15743"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15745,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15743\/revisions\/15745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}