South Korea trip part 2 - Going to Gunsan

Grant had some time off during the week so we decided to visit Gunsan for a couple of days. We got on a bus at Daejeon bus station and we were on our way. About 30 minutes into our trip, Grant looked worried and said he thought we might be on the wrong bus as there was a similar sounding place near Daejeon. It turned out he was right but luckily we were able to get a connecting bus from the fake Gunsan to the real Gunsan and better still the bus took us through some great scenery on the way including a National Park and some more rural areas, and as we weren't in a hurry it worked out better in the end. I took a couple of snaps through the bus window....

We arrived at Gunsan then got a taxi to our destination which was on the Geum river estuary. This site is reported to be an important area for Baikal Teal during the winter. There's a huge observation tower looking over a freshwater part of the river where it has been dammed, it looks more like an airport control tower than a hide. Unfortunately the tower seems to be built about half a mile away from the rivers edge. Grant has never seen Baikal Teal here as when he came to look it was so cold the river was frozen solid.

We stayed in a hotel on a hill nearby that mainly seemed to cater for weddings, and a rather skeletal staff populated the building. The garden was full of huge, grotesque stone sculptures. The view from the window was pretty good though as you can see the freshwater part of the river, plus a strange amusement park or fun fair that was always open but never seemed to have any visitors.

The Geum River Barrage, seperating the brackish water from the fresh water

There is an area that contains several restaurants and a shop selling junk food. We had some excellent Korean food in two of the restaurants here in a really friendly atmosphere, highly recommended but the menus are for more than one person so going on your own may be a problem as Grant has found out in the past. 

To the east there is a Eco Park near the observation tower that seemed to have very little in the way of birds in it at all, a couple of Parrotbills in the reedbeds but nothing else on two of the times I visited. Though Grant has had better luck in the past. The main activity occured to the west of the barrage. The area kind of reminded me a tiny bit of the more industrial parts of Rainham on a huge scale, but at Rainham, Terek Sandpipers, Sharp-tailed Sandpipers and Far Eastern Curlews are not a common sight. Nor are Mongolian Plovers or Black-tailed Gulls. I counted the Tereks one time and got 161, funny there is always that extra 1 that gets in there. At first there was no sign of any Sharp-tailed Sands but on the second day they turned up in numbers amongst the Dunlin, I counted 72 on the 26th April. The most obvious wader here was probably Bar-tailed Godwit, but there were also quite a few Black-tailed. We had 10 of the rather rare Far Eastern Oystercatchers, maybe a future split? Best of all on the evening of the 26th we had 3 of the rare Black-faced Spoonbill feeding out on the mud, with another few unidentified Spoonbill species earlier that flew off north.

Aveley Bay?

There were also a few passerines about, at least 9 Olive-backed Pipits, a single winter looking male Pallas's Reed Bunting and a group of Chinese Penduline Tits in the reed bed as well as several Black-faced Buntings. Also heard and saw White's Thrush in the woods nearby on several occasions. 

A trip to South Korea part one

It was curious but as I looked out the coach window at the landscape on my trip to Daejeon from Incheon airport, there was a strange feeling of familiarity about it, which I later put down to seeing old photographs of Korea from the 50's and some movies recently perhaps. The forested rippling hills with flat paddy fields in between, quickly being developed with tons of new apartment blocks. South Korea, or at least Daejeon is on the same latitude as Athens (Greece) and it has generally pretty cold winters, mediterranean springs and sub-tropical summers apparently.

I think the first bird I saw on my trip was Grey Heron, along with a bunch of Pacific Golden Plover somewhere near the Aam-Dearo area, plus loads of frustratingly distant gulls and other waders.

My first trip out with Grant was to the woods opposite his flat in Gun-dong, a nice hilly wood that turns up some good stuff. In fact we had 5 species of Woodpecker whilst standing in one area - White-backed, Great, Grey-headed, Pygmy and the least common one, Grey-capped (Pygmy) Woodpecker which surprised Grant as he had never seen one in his local wood. I only once again saw all 5 species together and that was in a Cemetery area near Wolpyeong Park that I was to spend many hours recording and birding in during the trip. This area is reached by walking a couple of miles along a river south of Gun-dong which could be quite busy at times, then got to along a path into the forest, this was to prove a perfect location, and very quiet (apart from the noisy building work on the other bank of the river).

The river was a good place to get migrants and was a regular place to see or hear Black-faced Buntings plus Olive-backed Pipits flying over. The sounds of birds in the cemetery forest were quite audible from below and White's Thrush could regularly be heard on the first visits and probably the easiest thrush to see as they were clearly nesting in here, with a max of 5 on one occasion. Plus regularly Yellow-rumped Flycatcher and Blue and White Flycatcher could be heard too. The other thrush that was on territory here was Grey-backed Thrush (Turdus hortulorum) and that was extremely hard to get anywhere near, though I did record it using my upturned umbrella.... I mean professional Chris Watson type parabolic scientific aparatus of course.

Dragon Swallowtail - pale morph

There were some pretty cool butterflies along the river path too, Blue Admiral was one that I didn't photograph, yes that's like Red Admiral but blue, basically. Plus lots of swallowtails....

Common Glider

Dragon Swallowtail - dark morph

Lilacene Bush Brown in the Cemetery

Long-tailed Spangle, when I was photographing this a couple of ladies came up to see what I was looking at, they seemed very impressed and it seems they were out foraging for plants near the cemetery.

 Regular birds in the cemetery included Japanese Tit, Azure-winged Magpie, Asian Stubtail with its insect like song, a variety of tits including the beautiful Varied Tit, Eastern Crowned Warbler, Yellow-throated Bunting, Oriental Turtle-doves and many others but some migrants appeared such as Asian Brown Flycatcher, Pale-legged Leaf Warbler and towards the end of April and early May, Black-naped Orioles began to set up territories plus Dusky Thrush on one occasion and on  a few occasions, Eyebrowed Thrush. Also the strange songs of Rufous-tailed Robins began to appear in early May. 

Also one time later on in my stay I was in the Cemetery with Grant and he decided to play a recording of Siberian Blue Robin and got one responding straight away! It turned out this bird may have been singing here for two weeks and I had mistaken it for a Dusky Warbler! This time it was perched out on a branch. Here's a recording of the Siberian Blue Robin and the cricket like song of Asian Stubtail
 

Eyebrowed Thrush looking at me looking at him 

View south along cycle track showing the woodland south of the cemetery

Two phylloscopus species that were heard in the area were Eastern Crowned Warbler and Yellow-browed Warbler, though the Yellow browed first turned up in early May.

Striated Heron

One of the most abundant birds in this part of the world is the Vinous-throated Parrotbills, little cuties they are too and the sounds they make just adds to that cuteness. Just about anything you think you might see diving into a reed bed or hedge turns out to be them. Several times I heard them calling loudly and when I tried to record them they'd strangely go quiet and hide. Not quite as cute but just as common are the incredibly noisy Brown-eared Bulbuls that seem to have taken up people watching, I often thought I was alone and was suddenly startled to realise I was being scoped by a party of Bulbuls with their presumably good eyesight, this isn't necessarily true I'm afraid but it sometimes felt that way. Or they would hide in the woods and just as was about to record something really delicate, burst into raucous screeches. When the Black-naped Orioles turned up they gave the Bulbuls a run for their money as they are quite aggressive and I noticed the Bulbuls went a bit 'sheepish' which may not be the right description for a bird. The Orioles are seemingly different from the European Golden Orioles, being apparently much bolder and easier to see. They make some gorgeous sounds as you can hear here:

Another bird that was present along the riverside later with a 'tropical' song was the Manchurian Bush Warbler, I got a distant recording of one here:

Some kind of white heron

I'll leave this section with a recording of a Blue and White Flycatcher from the cemetery and an Indian Cuckoo that turned up at the beginning of May

Korean Red Squirrel

A long layover and brief walk near Helsinki (or so I thought)

I like Finland, so I chose to fly to Helsinki for a layover period whilst waiting for my connecting flight to Seoul the next day. Vantaa airport is a great place to sleep if you ever need to as they have some chairs that are designed for that purpose, they play birdsong in the toilets (Blyth's Reed Warbler when I went in) and its a very laid back place, usually. However, it being Easter it was actually quite busy there that Saturday morning. So after a rather restless night I got up at dawn and set off for a walk and some birding local to the airport. Outside it was chilly with a ground frost, clear blue skies and I was surrounded by the sound of Fieldfares and some Redwings plus a singing male Wheatear on the airport roof. It was going to be a great day. I walked past the Aviapolis where I camped last year (well in the forest nearby). Unfortunately things got a bit confusing as extensive revetment works and road building had begun and all familiar memories past the Aviapolis were no more, still I did manage to navigate to a park near the airport, even if it did take me a couple of hours to find my way! An early migrant Wryneck was perched in the birches near a hotel and quickly flew across the road where I lost sight of it. I wandered across what looked like another business park and took a path over a clearing and into some woodland and came out on a large field that seemed to be teaming with Skylark with a few pairs of Lapwing dotted about. The weather was warming up nicely! I followed a small road past a housing estate towards the river where there were several Fieldfares wandering about on garden lawns. Then I was in site of the forest a mile or two away.

Räkättirastas

 I had a chat with a local birder who was looking for Black Redstarts on the farmland. I said I was hoping for some Black Woodpecker action and he said he regularly gets them in his garden. However, I had no Black Woodpecker action today, although on reaching the forest I had a nice Lesser Spotted Woodpecker drumming away on a large birch.

Pikkutikka

 It seems that birds here are so easy to photograph, something that would be the opposite when I got to South Korea! As usual for Finland there were several Yellowhammers and Tree Sparrows about, a group of the later where already at nest sites in boxes near a farm.

Keltasirkku

Pikkuvarpunen

The weather was now absolutely gorgeous, the kind of thing you dream of in the UK but never happens. I walked through the forest, quite a few people enjoying the bank holiday weekend here, mostly cyclists. I reached a point where there were quite a few large Spruce trees and a path that went down to the river. Here, there were a pair of Goldeneye and a Common Sandpiper but sadly no Dippers were showing.

Now it was getting really warm, as I left the forest and headed back I thought I'd try to find a nearby reservoir, however after walking a couple of miles around the edge it was clear it was completely fenced off - here there were several common butterflies about including a Map butterfly and several of the early spring anemones were flowering.

Sininen Anemone

Valkovuokko - otherwise known as  Wood Anemone

I then had a lot of trouble finding my way back to the airport, spent a couple of hours walking along a highway and for some reason, maybe due to tiredness and overheating I failed to recognise the area close to the airport, in hindsight I think this is due to the fact that some of that built up area does tend to look the same - however I met and had a chat with a really nice woman called Maria who pointed me in the right direction and I got back in plenty of time for my connection. 

Västäräkki

Appeals

With my birding adventures confined to the patch, Rainham (yawn) and a little jolly down to the Denge (Bradwell), I've had little to blog about and no enthusiasm either. So rather than tire you, dear reader, of the mendacity of plodding round Rainham for bugger all, I will entreat you to consider these two wonderful appeals.

FINGRINGHOE WICK – LAND PURCHASE APPEAL

A once in a lifetime opportunity to create a fantastic wetland

Can you help us make a real step forward for wildlife in Essex?

Imagine a wetland creation adjoining our fantastic Fingringhoe Wick nature reserve

Raised: 58%

 

£49,957.00 raised of £85,830.00 target 

http://www.justgiving.com/Essex-Wildlife-Trust4. 

Help us to complete the Great Fen jigsaw

One of Europe's most ambitious and visionary nature restoration projects...

We have a fantastic opportunity to transform 182 hectares of land at the heart of the Great Fen.

With your help, not only could we transform this major new piece of land into a nature-rich haven, but crucially, we could at last join up a number of separate areas we are already restoring to become one huge swathe of habitat where wildlife can spread and flourish. The Heritage Lottery Fund has awarded us £1.89 million towards this but we must urgently find £182,000 of match funding to release this generous grant. (The trust has a Landfill payment scheme that means your donation could free up monies 10 x its value)

£182,000

our goal

 

£88,680

raised so far

https://wildlifebcn.netdonor.net/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1816&ea.campaign.id=22811 

So instead of wasting huge amounts of money going to see an American Coot, do something useful and give something back to the wonderful world of nature...

Give it some

just arse!

Josh had a day off and was itching for twitching.  Kent looked best advised, and sure I would accompany him, I mean he would get lost otherwise...

First on the agenda was a brief stop at the concrete barges for a little gulling, and namely the first/second winter Iceland Gull that had been present for the last couple of days. We met Mr Brown down there who had the same idea, and we waited in the pleasant but slightly chilly (and smelly) conditions.

After about an hour Mr Brown picks the bird up sweeping down the river to the gantry where it dutifully lands.  A beautiful bird standing out from the crowd of Black-heads, Commons and the scruffy non-adult Herring, Lesser and Great Black-backs. I managed to eke out a Yellow-legged sub-adult just as it chose to hoof it back towards the tip.  Four points towards the Patch-List challenge (five with the addition of Oystercatcher) and a great start to the day.

Oh that it had continued that way. We somehow managed to miss the exit for the M20 and then managed the same with the M26 and had to go a long way round the M25 before we could double back.  A pit stop to buy a road atlas and some food later we back on our way into Kent (albeit nearly 2 hours later).

Treecreeper, Folkestone 

The detour probably cost us the Pallas's Warbler at Folkestone (a 2 hour no show) and put paid to some plans at Dungeness NNR (Hume's, Glaucuous Gull) though we did get a few Little Gull (lifer for Josh) and made everything else into a bit of a rush. At the south end of the Arc pit we stopped and scoped for the Black-throated Diver that was meant to be on an, apparently, empty new diggings, but Josh picked up a Great White Egret skirting the Arc. Three red-headed Smew and a couple of Goldeneye were about the only things of interest otherwise.

New stop the Hanson Hide where I thought the Penduline Tit had been reported (wrong!).  As it was a sunny day, it was quite clearly Numpty Day (bring another numpty and get half price), with a couple calling a male Goldeneye as a male Smew and exclaiming that had made their day (Josh mischievously put them right), then when I got them on to a red-head Smew they asked whether that was a rarity as they had seen brown-headed ones on the reserve...

The other couple were also finding Smew where there were none, which caused a senior moment for me as I tried to take the ladies camera as we left, Josh pointing out my own camera was still round my neck.  She just looked aghast.

Before seeing how many people we could annoy, ruin days for, we stopped of at Boulderwood Farm for the Tree Sparrow (another lifer for J). A quick cuppa in the centre, where we bumped into David Campbell doing the rounds (apparently with more success than we were having), who told us where the Penduline really were.  Instead of facing down my (one of several) nemesis, we did a quick clock-wise scurry between the hides for Black-necked Grebe, male Smew and anything else.  Picked up a Long-tailed duck at the east end of the main pit, some Pintail and more female Smew. With closing rapidly approaching we made it to the viewing ramp knowing full well we could not put in the time required for the elusive reed mace chomping tits. With the reserve closing at 5:00 we had to hoof it back to retrieve the car.  Just as Josh nipped of to the toilets a proper birder in front of me picks up one of the two reported Black-throated Divers flying low from the east. Josh got it just before he and it disappeared over and into the toilet block (another lifer for him).  A few minutes later and a male Goosander flew over just as Josh re-appeared.  Two Kent ticks for me in just a few minutes.

Didn't manage to get lost on the way home, even throwing in the slight detour to get a fish supper in Rye.  Great day apart from a few navigational issues...

Goosander, Port Talbot where we were not dipping a Ross's Gull the other weekend!

Another county, another small bird's arse

Sums it up quite neatly.  Can't remember the morning...

... might have dipped something but not quite sure...

Then parked the car somewhere, waked a mile or so to where we should have parked the car, walked some more.  Saw the bird we came to see fly off, waited sometime. And more sometime. Saw the bird we came to see in a bush fill of twigs, bird flicks out of bush several times very quickly and departs over our heads.  We wait some more time.  Give up.  Walk past where we should have parked the car, and walked to where we did.

A great day out and a very overdue lifer in the form of a blue-arsed flighty small bird hidden in a bush in a rather pretty valley in Gloucestershire.

Yellow-arsed, small yank bird, totally obscured by twigs, in the gloom somewhere up North!

About covers it.  Call it Yellow-rumped Warbler, call it Myrtle Warbler - it was my first lifer of the year and when it showed, well, it was a very pretty little thing.  Trouble is it didn't do much of the showing and when it did it performed behind twigs or the only coconut shell (deliberately secreted in the hedge) that was facing the other way. Nice little ticking call too which it used to vent it's frustration at being harassed by the local Robin bully.

So yes we went to Durham.

We got bored of the whole not showing well bit and went home. Four Red Kites somewhere near Weatherby and a Hen Harrier over Paxton Pits, so lifer home county ticks for both Mr Lowen (Yorkshire) and myself (Cambridgeshire).

Thanks to Mr Bradnum for providing the transport and Mr Lethbridge for getting his head and camera in the way, not that I missed anything there!