With a belt of heavy rain in the afternoon and associated falling visibility, there was an increase of birds on the move visible from shore, with probably 300 Streaked Shearwater<\/strong> seen in three hours (individuals were counted up to 200 but not subsequently), a single Red-throated Loon<\/strong>, three or four small groups that looked to be Ancient Murrelets<\/strong> (totalling 20-30 birds), perhaps 19 White-winged Scoter<\/strong> in total and 25 suspected Baikal Teal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n After the rain passed we had about an hour of light remaining. We headed back to where we had seen a mystery alcid<\/a> two weeks ago, and noted much larger numbers of birds on the water there, including 40+ Red-breasted Merganser<\/strong> and 2-3 Red-necked Grebes<\/strong>. JL then picked up two Long-tailed Duck<\/strong> (one male, one female) feeding at long range in among buoys (perhaps the first record \/ one of the first records of two together in the ROK, hence the need for record shots however awful!).<\/p>\n NM then found an alcid at long range that looked similar to the bird of two weeks before, though the head was not as obviously contrasting. Watched at long range in falling light by both of us, the bird looked all dark, still with something paler somewhere on the head, more obvious at some angles than others. The bird\u2019s body length was similar to that of a Black-necked Grebe<\/em> in the same scope view, but it looked more compact and dumpier, with no obvious neck and a bigger head, reminding NM of an Ancient murrelet-sized auklet. Three times in fifteen minutes, in failing light and as rain started to move back in, the bird sat up and wing-flapped and ruffled itself on the water, when the crown and upperparts looked black, the flanks looked dark grey and the belly was mid-grey, without any of the whitening towards the undertail coverts or vent shown by the larger-looking Rhinoceros Auklet<\/em> or by the presumably much smaller-still Whiskered<\/em>. The upper and undersides of both wings were all dark. The bill looked deep and shortish and at all times showed no obvious paling, again unlike the vast majority of Rhinoceros<\/em>.<\/p>\n A few very long-range digiscoped record shots were attempted. The only two to capture anything at least confirm that the bird looks all dark.\u00a0 One image suggests that the bird held its tail cocked. Amazingly, at full size, both images suggest strongly that the eye was very pale (still “obvious” below?), and that there was perhaps a hint of something paler coming back from it. The bill is heavy, deep and fairly short, lacking the longer look of Rhinoceros<\/em> in which the bill seems to be more of an extension of the forehead. And both images suggest a forehead and one or both\u00a0 (subliminally or imagined?) also suggest a short dark line sticking out from near it: either pixel distortion or evidence of a very short \u201ccrest\u201d.<\/p>\n To me (NM), the only plausible identification suggested by the field impressions and by the images is Crested Auklet<\/em>, a species not yet formally claimed in the ROK and which I have not seen for at least a decade (in the 90’s, however, I saw many hundreds\/ thousands in waters off northern Japan). If the identification is correct, it can probably be aged as a First Calendar-year on the basis of bill colour. As the bird was in the exact same area as that small all-dark alcid two weeks ago, it seems likely that this is the same individual: i.e. it should be looked for!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nial Moores and Jason Loghry In heavy overcast with occasional rain and northerly winds (mostly moderate, occasionally strong) a quick stop on the river at Pohang and another day spent on the peninsula, in the hope of determining whether the … read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":17041,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-sightings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032","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\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17032"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17055,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17032\/revisions\/17055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"vega-btgull_sbgurear_nov8_2015\"](\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/vega-btgull_sbgurear_nov8_2015.jpg\")
<\/a>Black-tailed Gull<\/strong> Larus crassirostris<\/em> (front), Vega Gull<\/strong>\u00a0Larus vegae<\/em> (centre) and Slaty-backed Gull<\/strong> Larus schistisagus <\/em>(rear part on left) \u00a9 <\/em>Nial Moores<\/p>\n<\/a>Vega Gull<\/strong> Larus vegae<\/em> \u00a9<\/em> Jason Loghry<\/p>\n<\/a>Second winter Taimyr Gull<\/strong> Larus heuglini taimyrensis<\/em> \u00a9<\/em> Jason Loghry<\/p>\n<\/a>Male and female Long-tailed Duck<\/strong> Clangula hyemalis<\/em> \u00a9 <\/em>Nial Moores<\/p>\n<\/a>Presumed Crested Auklet<\/strong> Aethia cristatella<\/em> \u00a9 <\/em>Nial Moores<\/p>\n