Last bird of the year

Smog-veiled Suncheon Bay

Pine Bunting Emberiza leucocephalos

   It's December 31st again, and I've managed to sneak in a cheeky birding session this morning, which is becoming something of a personal tradition for this date. After a hairy pre-dawn motorcycle ride out to the bay (frozen fingers, frosty visor, and terrifying black ice), I shuffled around a hazy landscape in which no sounds resounded except for the glorious complaints of Hooded Cranes.
  After a couple of quiet hours, and just as I muttered "What a slow bloody bird day!" to myself, I spotted three LBJs perched immobile at the top of the 'Long-eared Owl' tree. On the large side for buntings and strangely perched in a tree (as opposed to skulking restlessly in the scrub) they had me confounded until I was able to creep in closer. The warm chest had me thinking Meadow Bunting, but a glimpse of a Tree Sparrow-like white cheek clinched it...Pine Bunting! PINE BUNTING! A very long-awaited life bird for me, and one that I had long since given up all reasonable hopes of seeing. I spent a few glorious minutes watching them in the gloomy light before they flew off, seemingly towards the very horizon. Happy New Year indeed!

Here's what I wrote last year on this date:

"There are no suitable adjectives. Snowy *#@%ing Owl. 
 A perfect way to end the year. Interestingly, my birding buds in Korea, JP and Subs, also ended out their years with owlifers. Situational symmetry. I just realized that for the last few years, I've been birding hard on December 31st. In 2013 I was in Seoul searching unsuccessfully for Hazel Grouse, and the last day of 2012 saw Dr. Moores and I freezing in the name of a Long-tailed Shrike at Igidae. Here's hoping that 2015 will bring us all more awesome birds, and hopefully less bad news about bird habitat, as well as every other damn thing."