{"id":6283,"date":"2012-10-07T14:31:23","date_gmt":"2012-10-07T05:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=6283"},"modified":"2013-04-16T20:12:30","modified_gmt":"2013-04-16T11:12:30","slug":"seochong-do-30th-september-to-3rd-october","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=6283","title":{"rendered":"Seochong-do, September 30 &#8211; October 3"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Bird news by Subhojit Chakladar<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I set out for Seochong-do with lots of hope and a bit of trepidation. Having planned to spend the entire 3 hour journey on the deck looking out for seabirds, my hopes were quickly dashed as the boat authorities informed me that was not permitted due to safety reasons. Looking at the sea through a salt stained window wasn&#8217;t my idea of perfect autumn pelagic and I dozed off a result. Luckily, we were allowed to go out on the deck for about 15 minutes. Within minutes I spotted the first<strong> Pomarine Skua<\/strong> at a distance. I ran back to grab my camera. During the remaining time on the deck under pretty windy conditions, I encountered around 10 more of them and 2 separate flocks of <strong>Streaked Shearwaters<\/strong> with a conservative estimate of about 200+ birds in total. The stay in Seochong-do and the ferry journey produced a total of 55 species (based only on visual observation and photographic record)<\/p>\n<p><strong>September 30th<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Birding and especially photographing them in autumn is considerably more tricky than in spring. I learned it the hard way on the 1st day. The shifting clouds made it especially tricky to photograph the raptors. Highlights of the day include the migrating <strong>Oriental Honey-buzzards<\/strong> (~25), a probable <strong>Pallas&#8217;s Leaf Warbler<\/strong> in the lighthouse gully. North Point was strangely quite that afternoon except for 3 <strong>Black Faced Buntings<\/strong> and a single <strong>Olive Backed Pipit<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>October 1st<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>With clear blue skies and a moderate wind, it was a perfect day to be outdoors. Early in the morning walking towards the lighthouse, I encountered <strong>Chinese Grosbeak<\/strong> (~6), a single female <strong>Japanese Grosbeak<\/strong> and a <strong>Grey Faced Buzzard<\/strong>. The lighthouse gully was alive with activity. A male <strong>Blue and White Flycatcher<\/strong>, a flock of around 30 <strong>Eastern Great Tits<\/strong>, similar numbers of <strong>Varied Tits<\/strong>, more than 50 <strong>Yellow Browed Warblers<\/strong>. This also attracted a <strong>Hobby<\/strong> and a <strong>Chinese Sparrowhawk<\/strong>. At the lower part of the gully, I also encountered 2 <strong>Radde&#8217;s Warbler<\/strong>, a single <strong>Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker<\/strong> and more <strong>Black Faced Buntings<\/strong>. At around 9am, more raptors appeared including a <strong>Black Kite<\/strong> and an <strong>Osprey<\/strong>. The highlight of the trip came later in the day in quick succession. At first a flock of atleast 12<strong> Yellow Bellied Tits<\/strong> mixed with a similar sized flock of <strong>Eastern Great Tits<\/strong> and a few <strong>Coal Tits<\/strong>. Then a pair of <strong>Chinese Nuthatches<\/strong>. Later during the day, accompanied by another Korean birder, we found more <strong>Yellow Bellied Tits<\/strong> and 2 <strong>Chestnut Flanked White-eyes<\/strong>. <strong>Light Vented Bulbuls<\/strong> were encountered near the fish farm area.<\/p>\n<p><strong>October 2nd<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Starting before sunrise at North Point, the highlight include a female <strong>Pine Bunting<\/strong>, about 6~7 <strong>Chinese Nuthatches<\/strong>, 3 <strong>Meadow Buntings<\/strong>. Later in the morning at the lighthouse gully, more movement of passerines was observed. There were a few <strong>Dusky Warblers<\/strong>, 2 <strong>Common Rosefinches<\/strong>, a female <strong>Mugimaki Flycatcher<\/strong>. 40+ <strong>Oriental Honey Buzzards<\/strong> and many more <strong>Red-rumped Swallows<\/strong> were also seen in the sky. The stream at the 2nd village produced a <strong>White&#8217;s Thrush<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>October 3rd<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The morning ferry back to Incheon was quite productive. The highlights include 3 <strong>Flesh-footed Shearwaters<\/strong> and 6 <strong>Pomarine Skuas<\/strong> (including 1 dark morph individual)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?attachment_id=6302\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6302\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-6302\" src=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_02093-e1349587168153-1024x665.jpg\" alt=\"Chinese Nuthatch, &lt;em&gt;Sitta villosa&lt;\/em&gt; \u00a9 Subhojit Chakladar\" width=\"614\" height=\"399\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_02093-e1349587168153-1024x665.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_02093-e1349587168153-300x194.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_02093-e1349587168153.jpg 1377w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?attachment_id=6304\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6304\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-6304\" src=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_00551-e1349587362751-1024x619.jpg\" alt=\"Yellow-bellied Tit, &lt;em&gt;Periparus venustulus&lt;\/em&gt; \u00a9 Subhojit Chakladar\" width=\"614\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_00551-e1349587362751-1024x619.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_00551-e1349587362751-300x181.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_00551-e1349587362751.jpg 1672w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?attachment_id=6305\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-6305\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft  wp-image-6305\" src=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_00771-e1349587526699-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"Chestnut-flanked White-eye, &lt;em&gt;Zosterops erythropleurus&lt;\/em&gt; \u00a9 Subhojit Chakladar\" width=\"614\" height=\"409\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_00771-e1349587526699-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_00771-e1349587526699-300x199.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/10\/IMG_00771-e1349587526699.jpg 1443w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 614px) 100vw, 614px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bird news by Subhojit Chakladar I set out for Seochong-do with lots of hope and a bit of trepidation. Having planned to spend the entire 3 hour journey on the deck looking out for seabirds, my hopes were quickly dashed &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/?p=6283\">read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[418,417,415],"class_list":["post-6283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-sightings","tag-chinese-nuthatch","tag-seochong-do","tag-yellow-bellied-tit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6283","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=6283"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8341,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6283\/revisions\/8341"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}