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| Asian Brown Flycatcher Muscicapa dauurica |
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| Dark-sided Flycatcher Muscicapa sibirica |
Bird News from Matt Poll and Mike Balfour
Seotal Oreum, Jeju island, May 25, 2009
Two Oriental Dollarbirds and two noisy Black-naped Orioles were Jeju firsts for me, and a familiar sign of summer in Korea. A half dozen Japanese Bush Warblers, and a similar number of Arctic Warblers actively worked the trees and bushes. Several Dark-sided Flycatchers and about a dozen Asian Brown Flycatchers fed from open perches. A Peregrine Falcon circled overhead for a while, prompting alarm calls from the passerines. In the surrounding fields, numerous singing Meadow Buntings and Far Eastern Skylarks could be heard.
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| Grey-tailed Tattler Heteroscelus brevipes |
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| Dunlin Calidris alpina |
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| Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrines |
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| Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos |
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| Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius |
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| Oriental Reed Warbler Acrocephalus orientalis |
East coast, Jeju island, May 18, 2009
Along several beaches near Seongsan, two Red-necked Stints, 10 Dunlin, and a Kentish Plover were seen.
Several Grey-tailed Tattlers and Common Sandpipers associated nearby, and a Common Cuckoo was also heard.
At Pyeoson beach, four Great Knots paced the beach, and five Whimbrels flew overhead. Nearby, a Little Ringed Plover performed broken wing displays, while about about six Oriental Reed Warblers noisily moved through a reedbed.
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| Narcissus Flycatcher Ficedula narcissina narcissina |
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| Warbling (Japanese) White-eye Zosterops japonicus |
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| Blue Rock Thrush Monticola solitarius |
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| Chestnut-cheeked Starling Sturnus philippensis |
Seogwipo, Jeju island, May 6, 2009
The sunny and hot south side of Jeju has been a bit quiet as far as migrants go during the past week. In the farm field where the White-shouldered Starling was spotted, two female Chestnut-cheeked Starlings have been seen regularly for about a week. A dozen Cattle Egrets and about six Intermediate Egrets regularly patrol this field. A female Bull-headed Shrike was seen feeding her three gape-mouthed and shrieking young, who were also clumsily testing out their wings. Red-rumped Swallows temporarily outnumbered Barn Swallows (25:15) over this field a few days ago, but during the past few days, only three have been seen here.
In a nearby park, a Japanese White-eye collected spider webs for a nest, while an immature male Narcissus Flycatcher perched in a riverside tree. No sign of the Grey Bunting that was seen here two weeks ago.
On the coast, Blue Rock Thrushes entertained with both their boldness, and their aerobatic swooping and dive-bombing courtship displays. A disheveled and lethargic fledgeling was an interesting counterpoint to the energetic displays.
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*Note: This is a “historical post.” Whereas I started birding in Korea in 2005, this blog has only been active since early 2012 - these posts are an attempt to consolidate my early birdventures from the various blogs and websites where they reside, largely from the “Archived Bird News“ section of Birds Korea’s excellent website:
http://www.birdskorea.org/Birds/Birdnews/BK-BN-Birdnews-archive.shtml. Find more historical posts by clicking on the "Historical posts" tab at the bottom of this post.
For this post, most of images are lamentably poor-resolution screensaves, as many of the original photo files were lost in the infamous computer crash of 2011.)
