Bird news from Subhojit Chakladar<\/p>\n
With overnight snow painting the landscape white, I decided to check out what the Han River had to offer on New Years Day. Inspite of the bleak conditions, the year started with a bang! Just stepping out of Deokso station, a section of the river is visible which held a dark speck on the ice. At a distance of about 600m, it could only have been an eagle. A quick scan revealed a white wing patch confirming the first bird I saw this year to be a Steller’s Sea Eagle<\/strong>. Later, the bird came much closer, terrorizing huge rafts of Common Goldeneyes<\/strong>. However, the initial section of the river barely had any waterfowl except for a dozen Little Grebes<\/strong>. The scrubs were along the banks were much more active, with large numbers of Yellow-throated Buntings<\/strong> darting around and the more composed Rustic Buntings<\/strong> sparing me an occasional glance in the midst of feeding.<\/p>\n The unfrozen sections of the streams feeding the Han contained White<\/strong> and Japanese Wagtails<\/strong>, along with a party of Olive-backed Pipits<\/strong>, while the reeds supported a group of Oriental Greenfinch<\/strong> and Marsh Tits<\/strong>. At least 2 Naumann’s Thrush<\/strong> gave good views and more were heard. A Grey-headed Woodpecker<\/strong> was seen probing holes in a concrete wall. Waterfowl started appearing as I approached the Paldang bridge in form of rafts of Goldeneyes<\/strong>, Pochards<\/strong>, Tufted Ducks<\/strong> and fair number of Common Mergansers<\/strong>. The only other raptors of the day were a pair of Common Kestrels<\/strong>. Whooper Swans<\/strong> were also present in good numbers just before the bridge. But it was the finch bonanza that provided some excitement towards the end. Oriental Greenfinches<\/strong>, Hawfinches<\/strong> and Bullfinches<\/strong> (which appeared as if they were internally illuminated and the males sported an almost unearthly shade of red … perhaps accentuated by the reflections off the snow!) But the most surprising of the lot (at least for me) was a single male Chinese Grosbeak<\/strong>. Other birds of note were Meadow Buntings<\/strong> and Bramblings<\/strong>.<\/p>\n With the sun finally appearing from behind the clouds close to midday, I decided to try my luck at finding Alpine Accentors<\/em> at Bulamsan. But the sight of the colorful hiking juggernaut going up the slopes dashed all my hopes. I still decided to give it a try but with slippery slopes (and without the aid of crampons or a walking stick) it was tough going. The only new birds here were Long-tailed Tits<\/strong> and a couple of rather noisy Eurasian Jays<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Bird news from Subhojit Chakladar With overnight snow painting the landscape white, I decided to check out what the Han River had to offer on New Years Day. Inspite of the bleak conditions, the year started with a bang! Just … 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":[170,164],"class_list":["post-7226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-sightings","tag-han-river","tag-stellers-sea-eagle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226","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=7226"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8314,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions\/8314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.birdskoreablog.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}