{"id":18764,"date":"2016-12-17T13:57:58","date_gmt":"2016-12-17T04:57:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=18764"},"modified":"2016-12-19T09:24:10","modified_gmt":"2016-12-19T00:24:10","slug":"various-sites-dec-9-11-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=18764","title":{"rendered":"Various Sites, Dec 9-11 (“Part 2”)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bird News from Nial Moores with Dr Paul Prevett, Candy McManiman and Mike Friel<\/p>\n

Major highlights of the second part of this Anatidae and crane-focussed visit included close encounters with Oriental Stork<\/strong> and Red-crowned Crane<\/strong>, and decent views of Swan Goose<\/strong> and Steller’s Sea Eagle<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

On the 9th<\/sup> at Gomso Bay there was yet more construction \u2013 but excellent compensation was provided by close looks at eight Oriental Stork<\/strong> (four of which sported jewelry from the various reintroduction programs in Japan and the ROK) mixed-in with a jostling crowd of towering Western Great Egret<\/strong> and nearby also one Black-faced Spoonbill<\/strong> in among a flock of 51 Eurasians<\/strong>. Also of note there was a single Dusky Warbler<\/strong> and several small flocks of Chinese Penduline Tit<\/strong> spiraling up and migrating southward.\u00a0 In the afternoon, we visited Paju, seeing a First calendar-year Steller\u2019s Sea Eagle<\/strong> from the highway and enjoying prolonged looks at more flocks of Tundra Bean<\/strong> and Greater White-fronted Geese<\/strong> again in perfect light (but still failing to find any Lessers<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\"rs-ows-dsc04182\"<\/p>\n

\"rs-owsdsc04222\"Oriental Storks<\/strong> Ciconia boyciana<\/em> with Western Great Egret<\/strong> Ardea alba alba<\/em> \u00a9 Nial Moores<\/p>\n

On the 10th<\/sup> in Cheorwon, a colder day (with a morning low of -10C) started with excellent views of 400 White-naped<\/strong> and 25 Red-crowned Cranes<\/strong> standing on ice, with one family of the latter species soon after being chased playfully by a Korean Water Deer<\/strong> for several minutes.<\/p>\n

\"dof-mf\"<\/p>\n

\"gv-mf\"White-naped Cranes<\/strong> Grus vipio<\/em> \u00a9 Mike Friel<\/p>\n

\"rcc-mf\"Red-crowned Crane<\/strong> Grus japonensis\u00a0<\/i>\u00a9 Mike Friel, some with legs tucked up because of the cold!<\/p>\n

\"pt-mf\"Red-crowned Crane<\/strong> family being chased by a Korean Water Deer Hydropotes inermis argyropus<\/i> \u00a9 Mike Friel<\/p>\n

Although landbirds were rather scarce, we nonethless found half-a-dozen Siberian Accentor<\/strong> and several hundred Rustic Bunting<\/strong>, with best a single Pine Bunting<\/strong> (NM only).<\/p>\n

Thanks to the very kind help of Dr Jiseok Jung, we were then able to access the CCZ, where we found a single Chinese Grey Shrike<\/strong>, a family of five Tundra Swan <\/strong>resting in a rice-field, and several hundred more Red-crowned<\/strong> and White-naped Cranes.\u00a0<\/strong> In quieter areas the birds were easily audible over the embarrassing and loud propaganda broadcasts of K-pop and marching band music.<\/p>\n

\"rs-adulttundraswan4448\"Tundra Swan<\/strong> Cygnus columbianus\u00a0<\/i>\u00a9 Nial Moores<\/p>\n

\"rs-twocranes-488\"Red-crowned<\/strong> and White-naped Cranes<\/strong> \u00a9 Nial Moores<\/p>\n

Sadly, there was no sign of any other crane species there, though one Siberian <\/em>has recently been reported a little further east in the CCZ. The day instead ended watching c. 20,000 Greater White-fronted Goose<\/strong> (as estimated by Dr Lee Kisup) arrive spectacularly for roost on the Tokyo Reservoir.<\/p>\n

On the 11th<\/sup>, we visited a couple of stretches of the Han River before spending a couple of hours at Namhanseong, where best was a close-feeding White-backed Woodpecker<\/strong>. Thanks to information from Dr Lee Kisup and members of the Waterbird Network we were able to locate a flock of Swan Goose<\/strong> (seeing 55+ out of the 63 still present) as well as re-find the Steller\u2019s Sea Eagle<\/strong> glimpsed from the car on the 9th<\/sup>. Later, we also had rather better looks of\u00a0 a Steller’s<\/strong> at\u00a0 the usual wintering site, where additional highlights were a half-dozen Mandarin Duck<\/strong> and an unexpected mammal sighting: apparently a Large Mole<\/strong> Mogera robusta<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"rs-mandarinscratching4604\"Mandarin Duck<\/strong> Aix galericulata\u00a0<\/i>\u00a9 Nial Moores<\/p>\n

\"sm-mf\"Large Mole<\/strong> Mogera robusta <\/em>(?)\u00a0\u00a9 Mike Friel<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bird News from Nial Moores with Dr Paul Prevett, Candy McManiman and Mike Friel Major highlights of the second part of this Anatidae and crane-focussed visit included close encounters with Oriental Stork and Red-crowned Crane, and decent views of Swan … read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":18726,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[230,870,182,170,179,164],"class_list":["post-18764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bird-sightings","tag-cheorwon","tag-cranes","tag-gomso-bay","tag-han-river","tag-oriental-stork","tag-stellers-sea-eagle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18764","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=18764"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18771,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18764\/revisions\/18771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}