Birdathon on Eocheong-do

If you’ve been following my blog, even for a short time, you might have noticed that I have what polite society might call a condition.  To say that I have “birds on the brain” doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.  I have dreams about birds, usually involving species I haven’t seen perching out in the open under perfect lighting conditions for me to photograph at my leisure.  I consider myself fluent in over 400 languages, because that is roughly the number of species I can readily identify by song or call alone (and that number continues to grow).  So, yeah, I have a condition.

Therefore it should go as no surprise that when my friend Jason Loghry at Birds Korea asked me to join the 2014 Birdathon, I literally jumped at the chance.  For those of you who don’t know, a Birdathon is a fundraising event wherein participants are sponsored to go out and see or hear as many different species as possible within a 24-hour period.  Sponsors can decide to pay a set amount of money per species, per hour spent birding, or a lump sum total.  For this Birdathon, all proceeds go directly to Birds Korea to help fund their conservation efforts protecting the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper and the habitats it utilizes here in South Korea.  It’s important work, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to contribute in my own way.

I’ve already written about Eocheong-do (어청도), so this post is strictly about the birds.  And oh, the birds we did see.  There were six participants in this year’s Birdathon at Eocheong-do; other Birds Korea members did separate Birdathons at other locations in Korea and elsewhere in the world.  This year’s event carried with it the caveat that participants cannot use any mode of transportation other than their feet during the actual count period; i.e. we could take a ferry boat to Eocheong-do, but could not count any species seen during that time.  Here are some vital statistics on Birdathon 2014:

Duration: 4 days (May 3 – 6)
Birdathon Count Period: May 3, 10:20AM – May 4, 10:20AM
Birdathon Count Period Total: 78 species heard/observed
Total Species Counted on Eocheong-do: 95 species
Species Added to Life List: 18 (me); 22 (Melanie)
Funds Raised: 171,000₩

To briefly summarize our four day adventure, the birding was nothing short of spectacular.  Every day brought in new migrants, and every inch of the island was crawling with birds.  The vast majority were yellow-browed warblers, but hidden among them were less common species like Kamchatka leaf warbler and pale-legged leaf warbler.  As I have been told many times, the best birding in Korea can be found offshore on the islands, and I found this out to be true first-hand.  It wasn’t just the numbers of birds, but also the variety of species.  We even had to good fortune of spotting two mega-rarities: a cinnamon bittern and Korea’s third record of northern wheatear!

Here are a few of the highlights of our trip to Eocheong-do:

Narcissus Flycatcher (Ficedula narcissina)

Blue-and-white Flycatcher (Cyanoptila cyanomelana cyanomelana)

Chestnut Bunting (Emberiza rutila)

Yellow-breasted Bunting (Emberiza aureola ornata)
Classified as Endangered on the IUCN Red List

Common Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis bengalensis)

Chinese Pond-heron (Ardeola bacchus)

Black-winged Stilt (Himantopus himantopus himantopus)

Terek Sandpiper (Xenus cinereus)

Brown Shrike (Lanius cristatus lucionensis)

Northern Wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe oenanthe)
This is only the 3rd time this species has been recorded in South Korea

These are but a small portion of all the images I took during our trip to Eocheong-do.  I encourage you to explore the Asian Bird galleries at my website if you’d like to see more from the trip.

The Birdathon Crew
From left: Jason Loghry, Hwang Haemin, Melanie Proteau Blake, Patrick Blake, Ha Jeongmun, and Kim Ohjin

It was a tremendous experience, one that will not soon be repeated.  Melanie and I were able to see some incredible birds and experience a migration unlike any we had before, and all the while we were raising money to help protect the crucial habitats that the birds we know and love depend on for survival.  A big thanks goes out to Birds Korea for hosting this event, and to my fellow Birdathoners here and abroad, for their dedication and passion that make birding the great past time that it is.

Migration in Perspective

April and May mark the peak of the spring migration.  Every year, bird across the globe take to the air and embark on fantastic journeys from their wintering grounds to the breeding grounds.  Often this journey takes them from one hemisphere to another; some species make flights that cover literally tens of thousands of kilometers.

Once this journey is complete, birds have only a few short weeks to breed and raise their young.  Then they repeat the process in reverse, departing their breeding grounds for warmer climates to the south.  This spectacle happens twice every year, but it happens so quickly that if you blink you can miss it.  I make special efforts to get out birding as often as possible during this special time of year.

It would take too many words to describe all the migrants I’ve seen throughout the month of April, so I’ve compiled a short list of some of my favorite experiences over the past month.  So here is the “Cliff’s Notes” version of spring migration in South Korea.

Scaly Thrush (Zoothera dauma toratugumi), often referred to as “White’s Thrush”

Migration in South Korea begins with arrival of the thrushes, at least in terms of the passerine migration. Some species, such as pale thrush and scaly thrush are resident species, but are rarely observed during the winter months.  At this time of year the thrushes become more visible, and more vocal.  Dusky and Naumann’s thrushes, preparing for their return to their northern breeding grounds, congregate in growing numbers before leaving Korea until the autumn.  The forests begin to fill with the haunting melodies of pale thrush and scaly thrush.  More unusual migrants, such as grey-backed thrush and Japanese thrush can put in brief appearances during their flights north.  And as quickly as it began, the thrushes pass through and are not seen again until the fall.

Dusky Thrush (Turdus eunomus)

Migration starts to pick up with the arrival of the first Old World warblers.  The first arrivals are Japanese bush-warblers and Asian stubtails.  The majority of warblers do not breed in Korea at all, and only make short stop-offs on their way to somewhere else.  This makes the warbler migration very short, but also very exciting.  Old World warblers are not nearly as colorful and visually appealing as their North American cousins, but they do match their relatives when it comes to melodious songs.  In fact, with most Old World warblers, the only way to tell them apart is their song.  Otherwise they all basically look the same.

Japanese Bush-warbler (Horornis diphone cantans)

Eastern Crowned Leaf-warbler (Phylloscopus coronatus)

The last passerines to arrive (or pass through) on the Korean peninsula are the Old World flycatchers.  Unlike the tyrant-flycatchers of North America (small, drab, nondescript birds – usually only identifiable by their songs), Old World flycatchers run the gamut of colors.  Residents like Daurian redstart and overwintering species like red-flanked bluetail make way for such exotic-sounding species as Siberian stonechat, Narcissus flycatcher, and Mugimaki flycatcher.  As with many migrants, most of these species are only passing through, and no sooner do they arrive than off they go to their northern breeding grounds.

Narcissus Flycatcher (Ficedula narcissina)

___________________________________________________________________________

Birding during migration is all about timing.  A day or two can make all the difference between seeing a migrant species and having to wait a few months until it passes through again.  I’ve had some good fortune with timing this spring, and have been rewarded with adding some fantastic species to my Life List.  On a recent birding trip to the Busan area, my friend Jason Loghry and I spotted a Japanese robin and had a brief encounter with a Sakhalin leaf-warbler, both species scarce migrants to Korea.  We also had the opportunity to see the first of the new generation after locating six fledgling long-tailed tits being fed by adults.

Japanese Robin (Larvivora akahige)

Long-tailed Tit Fledgling (Aegithalos caudacutus magnus)

A long weekend holiday is fast approaching, and Melanie and I have signed up to attend a Birdathon with Birds Korea on Eocheong-do.  This will be my first official Birdathon, and our first visit to this premier birding spot off the western coast of Korea.  Look for my full report on the trip in the next few weeks.

Surveying the Endangered

It is human nature to value the unusual or the rare more so than the common and the everyday.  Birders are no different.  Birders are always on the lookout of the “rare” birds; if you stumble onto a birding party, the question most often asked is some variation of Have you seen anything good?  In this case, “good” means “rare”; no one asks or cares if you’ve seen the common species.

There are “rare” birds, and then there are rare birds.  This second class encompasses birds that are rare everywhere.  In North America, a bird that ranges on the West Coast that somehow shows up on the East Coast is considered “rare” and East Coast birders will come in droves to see it.  But that doesn’t mean that particular bird is rare everywhere – the “Oregon” junco is “rare” in Ontario, but is commonplace in Nevada.

There is another word for that second class of rare bird.  The word is endangered.

This kind of rare bird is rare everywhere it occurs; there just aren’t that many of them.  The reasons a bird becomes endangered are many; most often human-related, but not always.  And because there are so few of them, having the opportunity to see an endangered species is one that you never forget.

I had just such an opportunity this past weekend, when I joined Birds Korea member Jason Loghry on a survey near the city of Naju-si.  We were surveying the population of scaly-sided merganser, a species listed as globally endangered by the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature).  By the most recent estimates, there are only about 2,500 adult scaly-sided mergansers left in the world, most of which are found near where the borders of China, North Korea, and Russia, meet.

Out of concern for this species, I will not reveal where exactly we found these birds.  This species is excessively shy and wary of humans, and is easily disturbed.  Even to observe these birds, we had to be very quiet and patient, and even then sometimes the birds would take to the air and fly off to another location.  The purpose of this post is to raise awareness of this rare bird, not to create a crowd of (likely well-meaning) observers who may or may not maintain the same level of care and respect that the species deserves and requires to continue existing.

The scaly-sided merganser closely resembles the common merganser, which is far more common (as the name implies) and familiar to the average person.  Indeed, I had never even heard of scaly-sided merganser until I moved to South Korea, and even then I never expected that I would actually see one.

Two pairs of Scaly-sided Mergansers (Mergus squamatus) preen together on the water.

Males have a long, shaggy crest, which the common merganser males lack.  Females are harder to differentiate, as they closely resemble the females of common merganser.  The key distinguishing characteristic of the species is a patch of scale-like feathers on the flanks and rump of the bird; these feathers are what give the species its name.  The birds also have a small yellow tip on their bills, though this is rarely visible in the field.

This species is a wintering bird in South Korea, and selects waterways that meet very stringent criteria during the winter months.  The river cannot be too deep or too wide.  Often times they prefer gravel-bottomed riverbeds with large boulders or gravelly “shingles” where they can locate food.  Even finding this particular habitat, the onset of winter and the resulting freeze-up often means that the birds must relocate to other rivers until the return of spring.

Scaly-sided Mergansers in flight.
Note the scaled patterning on the flanks, and the fine black stripes in the white wing patch.

It was a rare privilege to find and observe these birds.  Jason and I had the good fortune to find six of them along the survey route.  We could watch them feed and preen, and interact with other species on the water.  In a comical display, a group of five scaly-sided mergansers expressed their displeasure at a nearby grey heron by repeatedly bobbing their heads in and out of the water as they approached the heron.

For more information, I encourage you to check out Birds Korea’s Key Species page.

Whoopers

Winter is a great time to observed waterfowl, at least until freeze up.  As long as open water remains, geese, ducks, and swans can be plentiful.  So a group of us followed Birds Korea members Andreas Kim and Robin Newlin to Gangjin Bay to look for waterfowl and any other potential migrants or overwintering species.

The north portion of Gangjin Bay at low tide.
The white spots in the distance are Whooper Swans.

It was a gorgeous day, with unusually high temperatures in the mid-teens °C.  By midday we had shed several layers and were basking in the spring-like weather.  We arrived at Gangjin Bay at low tide, when all of the waterfowl and shorebirds were foraging in the exposed mud.  The whooper swan, our target bird for the day, clearly dominated the area, with several hundred covering the mudflats in all directions.  Other species included eastern spot-billed duck, mallard, Eurasian teal, gadwall, and Eurasian wigeon.

Have scope, will bird…
© Pedro Kim

Looking for waterfowl…

Waders like grey heron, great egret, and little egret were found in small numbers; shorebirds were a rare find, and only a flock of dunlin and a few common sandpipers could be found on the mudflats.  Our group also located a Eurasian spoonbill, and shortly thereafter had the good fortune to see two of the rarer black-faced spoonbills.

Black-faced Spoonbill (Platalea minor)

There were also a lot of passerines in the rice fields adjacent to Gangjin Bay.  The habitat was characterized by the tidal flats of the Bay, surrounded by reed beds of variable size, bordered by vast stretches of rice fields and agricultural land.  As the growing season is over and the fields tilled and sown for the coming season, a lot of sky larks were making use of this fertile land to forage and hide from predators.  Eurasian kestrels and a single Eurasian sparrowhawk patrolled the area, and it wouldn’t be a Korean bird outing without at least one bull-headed shrike.  The reeds were alive with activity, though many of the birds remained hidden in the vegetation and made themselves known only by their soft chips and tweets.  Careful and patient scanning revealed a plethora of buntings, including reed bunting, black-faced bunting, yellow-throated bunting, and a single meadow bunting (Lifer #605).  Chinese penduline-tits and vinous-throated parrotbills were also present in greater numbers.

Agricultural land surrounding Gangjin Bay

By the end of the day we had tallied 53 species.  You can see the complete list(s) here, here, and here.

Below are some of my favorite photos from the day.

Whooper Swans (Cygnus cygnus) take to the air near Hakmyeong-ri

A close up of a Whooper Swan family

Eurasian Coot (Fulica ater ater) at Gocheonnam Lake

Chinese Penduline-tit (Remiz consobrinus)

Meadow Bunting (Emberiza cioides castaneiceps); © Andreas Kim

Black-faced Bunting (Emberiza spodocephala spodocephala)

Look Me Up When You’re in Haenam

I’d rather be birding.

This is the refrain that kept going through my head over and over and over (and over) again throughout the week.  If I had a car, I’d have a bumper sticker that says this.  Maybe I should get it tattooed across the back of my head.  I’d rather be birding.

I’d really rather be birding.

The lister is never satisfied.  It doesn’t matter how many birds you’ve seen; all that really matters to a lister is all the birds you haven’t seen.  That includes birds that you have no chance at seeing, whether it’s due to distance, geography, or extinction.  The refrain began around the time I learned of a Ross’s gull that had appeared (and seems to be staying) at a water treatment facility outside of Chambly, Québec.  For those of you who don’t recognize that particular bird, a Ross’s gull is the bird every birder wants on their list.  It lives and breeds in the high Arctic, and uncharacteristically migrates still further north in the winter.  It rarely appears further south of the Arctic Circle, so unless you plan on going to such exciting destinations as Churchill, Alberta, or Barrow, Alaska, you’re not likely to see one of these gorgeous birds.  And now one just happened to appear at a location no more than a 30 minute drive from my in-law’s house in Montréal.  So what am I doing on the other side of the planet?

So when the weekend came, I decided to stop repeating the phrase in my head and start living it again.  And what better way than to join forces (so to speak) with Birds Korea and Lonely Korea’s very own Pedro Kim?  Have scope, will travel.

Destination: Haenam
Our coverage area is marked in red

Our group met early at 7:30am outside of the U+ Square bus terminal.  There were nine of us, several hardened birders, and a few “fledglings” just taking their first step into the birding world.  We huddled into Pedro’s van and left the bustling streets of Gwangju for the quiet cabbage fields of Haenam-gun.  Get a bunch of birders together for an outing, and within a few minutes we’re all life-long friends.  It’s something I’ve noticed after several years of birding, and I don’t see that often with other activities (although I’m sure it happens).  The hour and a half drive passed by quickly, as we traded stories, sightings, and jokes.

As we approached our destination, we passed a wide expanse of industrial reclamation, and Jason yelled out “shorebirds.”  We pulled over, and in seconds the scopes were up and the birding had begun.  Our first stop produced dunlin, red-necked stints, grey herons, and great egrets.  Our novice companions, not quite sure just what they had gotten themselves into, quickly learned that the name of the game in winter birding is flexibility.  We go where the birds are; if they’re not where they’re supposed to be (or where we think they should be), then we drive around until we find them.  But didn’t someone say it’s not the destination, but the journey?

We filed back into the van and continued on our way, but not without pulling off to the side of the road a few minutes later to scan an open waterway for waterfowl.  We spotted mallards, eastern spot-billed ducks, northern pintails, common goldeneye, greater scaup, and great crested grebes.  There were numerous geese flying overhead, but due to the angle of the sun, we were only able to identify them as “bean-geese.”  We couldn’t identify them to the species level, which in layman’s terms means they’re uncountable (and therefore unlistable).

Back in the van, and back on the road.  We were starting to get efficient at this.  As we traveled further into Haenam county, the ever-present rice paddies gave way to fields of cabbage.  We had entered kimchi (김치) country.  Kimchi is the quintessential Korean cuisine; it’s a spicy fermented cabbage, which is far more delicious than it sounds.  I had never heard of it before coming here, but now it’s practically a food group for me.

It is immediately obvious that we had entered the Land of Kimchi

We stopped (for real this time) at the end of a small country road, overlooking a vast expanse of scrubland.  We were immediately greeted by great looks at Daurian redstarts and a bull-headed shrike.  Brown-eared bulbuls and oriental turtle-doves were also present.  We set up our scopes and proceeded to scan the area, hoping to spot something interesting over the land before us.  It wasn’t long before we found something: northern harrier!  This stunning raptor glided over the field in the distance; it was only visible through the spotting scopes.  While watching this bird we also noticed a Eurasian sparrowhawk soaring over the area, and its presence sent a flock of sky larks into the air.

This seemingly barren vista provided our group with some of the best raptor birding of the day.

How to Identify a Birder (by sight):
1. Oddly dressed, with binoculars fused to face
2. Oddly dressed, hunched over a camera

A few of us took a quick walk through the area, just to see what else was hiding in the vast expanse.  For our efforts we were rewarded with views of an upland buzzard and several ring-necked pheasants.

Upland Buzzard (Buteo hemilasius)

A flock of passing geese revealed two species flying together: greater white-fronted geese in with still-unidentified “bean-geese.”  The Bean-goose, now split into two separate species, is a difficult species to identify without careful observation.  The only real diagnostic marker is bill size and shape, which is very difficult to discern on a moving target several hundred meters away.

Our trusty ride for the day – comfortably seats 9

Once more we piled into the van and took off to the next destination.  On the way we passed a few more bull-headed shrikes and a Eurasian kestrel.  For the rest of our trip, our locations were not addresses so much as GPS coordinates – some of the locations were that remote.  We scouted the edge of one of the waterways in Haenam county, hoping for some large congregations of waterfowl.  We had been seeing flocks of geese for most of the day, so it was time to find out where they were going.  Our location was perfect: we had stumbled onto several hundred tundra bean-geese, with an equal number of greater white-fronted geese mixed in.  Now that we had the time to examine them properly, the uncountable “bean-geese” took on a countable species title.  Other waterfowl present included common pochard, tufted duck, gadwall, and common merganser.  An impressive number of great crested grebes and little grebes dove and swam in with the ducks and geese.  We also found some interesting passerines, including Siberian stonechat, zitting cisticola, Chinese penduline-tit, and Pallas’s bunting.  Several Caspian gulls flew lazy circles overhead, and in the fields surrounding the water we spotted singles of common buzzard, peregrine falcon, and Eurasian hobby.

Our posse checks through a horde of geese, looking for anything out of the ordinary…

Tufted Duck (Aythya fuligula)

Female Common Pochard (Aythya ferina)

Zitting Cisticola (Cisticola juncidis brunneiceps)

Great Crested Grebe (Podiceps cristatus cristatus)

Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis poggei)

We had a break from the birding (not really), and enjoyed warm ramyeon on Pedro’s propane camping stove.  The nice thing about being in such a remote area is that you don’t need to worry about traffic.  We parked the van just off to the side of the road, opened her up, and made our “camp” right at an intersection.  Not a single car passed the whole time.  We were set up like kings, sitting in a circle around the stove on folding chairs, courtesy of Pedro.

It was getting on in the day, and as the sun began to settle low in the sky, we packed up and headed on to the last destination of the day.  On the way we made a brief stop near one of the bridges traversing the waterways in Haenam, adding mew gull, common kingfisher and white wagtail to our day total.

“Black-backed” White Wagtail (Motacilla alba lugens)

The Birding Gods were saving the best for last.  We arrived at our last destination, spotting another northern harrier gliding over the reeds on the edge of the water.  Our view was obscured by a small berm, but rising to the top of it we could see out over a large estuary.

Melanie dons the latest fashion in birding apparel.

Scanning the water…

The view from the berm, looking at the opposite shore and what appears to be a sandbar

Out in the middle of the water, many hundreds of meters from shore, was a dark line that appeared to be a sandbar rising out of the water.  A look through the spotting scope revealed its true nature: the sandbar was actually an enormous flock of Baikal teal!  We estimated the flock to be at least 90,000 strong.  Baikal teal overwinter in the Yellow Sea, picking various spots along the eastern coast of China and the western coast of Korea.  The majority of the world’s population of this beautiful duck can be found within this small area in the winter, creating massive flocks like the one we had just found.

A look through the scope reveals tens of thousands of Baikal teal (Anas formosa)
Click the image to see a video of this amazing flock take to the air at dusk.

Other ducks were present, but no where near the concentration of the Baikal teal.  Eastern spot-billed ducks, common goldeneye, common merganser, and a lone female smew made up the other waterfowl species present.  Close examination of the Baikal teal flock also revealed three eared grebes hiding within.

Just as the sun was setting, the flock of Baikal teal took to the sky.  Even from that distance, the sound of 90,000 pairs of wings all flapping at once was audible, and the flock resembled a large cloud rising from the water.  It was truly an amazing experience, and one I’m not likely to forget anytime soon.  We watched the Baikal teals for as long as the light held out, but eventually it was time to return to Gwangju.  In the end we had observed nearly 60 species over the course of the day, which isn’t a bad haul for mid-November.

The Victorious Birders
From left: Pedro Kim, Peter Hirst, Ha Jung-Moon, Patrick Blake, Melanie Proteau Blake, Maria Lisak, Bob Harding, Lee Ju-Hyung (front right)

Seoul Searching

Okay, not the most original title ever conceived.  But we were in Seoul, and we were searching, so the title fits.

Despite living in South Korea for nearly nine months now, Melanie and I had only been to Seoul a total of four times between the two of us.  And most of those trips were to the Incheon Airport to either go somewhere else or pick someone up.  So we decided to pick a weekend and just go.  I had made some arrangements with a friend, Birds Korea member, and fellow eBirder, Bradlee Sulentic.  Another Birds Korea member, Jason Loghry, would meet up with us.  We would spend one day at the Korea National Arboretum (국립수목원-구, 광릉수목원), and the second day would be put aside to do the more touristy things that I often neglect on my obsession-driven “holidays.”

The plan was to meet up at around 6:30am, then head over to the Arboretum and spend the day.  So of course Melanie and I missed our transfer on the subway, ended up heading northward out of the city, then finally realized our mistake and took another train heading back the way we had come.  We arrived at the pick-up at around 7am, only to discover that Seoul traffic had held up our companions, so we actually didn’t arrive at the Arboretum until almost 9am.  Which was perfect, actually, since the gates just opened moments earlier, so we had the place relatively to ourselves.

A quiet side trail at the Korea National Arboretum.
The weather’s not looking too good right now…

That’s right around the time the rain started.  A little sprinkle at first.  Then some misting.  More sprinkles.  Then just rain.

Three hours into the birding, and we had seen only a handful of species.  Top on the list was a flock of nearly twenty hawfinches, but mostly just a lot of noisy brown-eared bulbuls and a few large-billed crows.  As Melanie was deciding to head back to the car and dry off for a bit, we got a call from Jason that he had located a Eurasian eagle-owl perched in a tree!  So off we ran into the woods to find him.  A more miserable and pathetic looking owl I have never seen.

A very wet and miserable Eurasian Eagle-owl (Bubo bubo kiautschensis)

It was at this point that we took our cue from the eagle-owl and headed to warmer and drier locales.  The Arboretum has a nice coffee shop, where you can pick up a latte and some snacks while overlooking a tranquil lake.  Despite the rain, the changing colors of the leaves gave the whole place a lovely atmosphere, and a hot caramel macchiato doesn’t hurt either.

We are not impressed with the rain.
Myself with fellow eBirder Bradlee Sulentic

Coffee shop overlooking Lake Yukrim

Eventually, and by eventually I mean nearly 5 hours later, the rain stopped.  It never got sunny, but at least it wasn’t a torrential downpour anymore.  The birds seemed to like the change in weather too, because the activity really picked up in the afternoon.  While Melanie decided she had had enough of the cold, and happily read her book in the café, the three intrepid birders returned to the forest and continued the search.

Bradlee and I went to follow up on a sighting Jason had made earlier.  In a large mixed-species flock of birds, we found nearly a half dozen yellow-bellied tits feeding with Japanese tits and coal tits.  This species has been expanding its range; it was considered an endemic species to eastern China not a decade ago.  Now it’s starting to move into the Korean peninsula and northward into Mongolia and Russia.  This was easily the highlight of the trip for everyone.

Walking back towards the entrance to the Arboretum, Bradlee and I stumbled onto a Eurasian treecreeper, which was a bird I had more or less given up on finding in Korea.  It looks extremely similar to the brown creeper of North America, and it represents only the second member of family Certhiidae to grace my Life List.  Further down the trail we found a grey-capped woodpecker, another difficult bird to find in Korea.

Before calling it a day, we scoured the edge of a stream running along the border of the Arboretum.  Bradlee swore this was a perfect site to find solitary snipe, if not one of the best spots in the world.  We had been over the stream three times with nary a snipe to be seen.  Then Jason called in and said he had found one hidden in the grasses along the bank.  So we grabbed Melanie from her cozy roost in the café and made for the stream.  And just as Jason had promised, we spotted a solitary snipe foraging along the water’s edge…by itself, as its name implies.

This stream running along the edge of the Arboretum is reportedly one of the best places anywhere to see solitary snipe.  That is, if you are keen enough to spot this cryptic bird amid all the rocks and grasses.

Solitary Snipe (Gallinago solitaria japonica)

We ended the day on a high note.  I had tallied four lifers (yellow-bellied tit, grey-capped woodpecker, Eurasian treecreeper, and solitary snipe) and got some excellent views of some amazing birds.  Melanie counted two lifers (Eurasian eagle-owl and solitary snipe), and though she never was able to shake the chill from the rain, she did enjoy hanging out with some great people.

See the full eBird report for the day here.