Gapyeong, June 1-2 2023

Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major

Black-naped Oriole Oriolus chinensis

Marsh Tit Poecile palustris

Eurasian Nuthatch Sitta europaea

Striated Heron Butorides striata

Little Egret Egretta garzetta

A colony of White-cheeked Starling Spodiopsar cineraceus

Asian Swallowtail Papilio Xuthus 

Purple Emperor Apatura iris

Siberian Chipmunk Eutamias sibiricus

Old fighting positions in the hills above town

All aboard the boat to Crazytown!

A photography club heads off in search of Tawny Owls
on Nami Island

  The first of June was a long travel day that saw me end up in Gapyeong, east of Seoul. At dusk, I took a walk into the the hills where perhaps Ruddy Kingfishers were heard several short years ago. It was not a productive walk, bird-wise. A new hotel and restaurant in the valley below were pumping out loud music into the once quiet hills. Later I found several weathered military dugouts atop a ridge above town – perhaps dug by Canadian troops during the Battle of Gapyeong in 1951…or maybe they were more recent excavations?

  On June 2, I took the short ferry trip to the bizarre tourist trap that is Nami Island. The Ruddy Kingfishers that used to nest on the island have been effectively extirpated by naughty photographers, and the remaining Black Woodpeckers there seem headed the same way. Three Eastern Tawny Owls (two young birds and one adult) were also drawing an attentive crowd.

  After Nami, several Striated Heron and Little Egret worked a riverbank near my weird hotel. A colony of White-cheeked Starlings buzzed and burbled along a brushy riverbank. There were juvenile birds begging in every tree, and there had to have been at least 150 birds there, probably more.

Double-dipping Part 1 AKA Just Stick to Your Patch

Ferry to Nami Island

Gapyeong

Tim, birding

Black Woodpecker holes...minus the Black Woodpeckers

Grey-headed Woodpecker Picus Canus

Young Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchos, begging

Siberian Chipmunk Eutamias sibiricus

Eurasian Nuthatch Sitta europaea

Black-naped Oriole Oriolus chinensis

  Lured by the tantalizing prospect of potentially seeing five lifers (Ruddy Kingfisher, Black Woodpecker, Northern Boobook Owl, Eastern Tawny Owl, and Northern Scops Owl), I hauled my tired carcass up to Gapyeong, via Seoul, in the ungodly wee hours of June 27th. Just outside of town lies Nami Island, a lenticular wooded spot that is clogged with selfie-stick-wielding tourists. For some reason, the five aforementioned species, which are local and hard to see in Korea, regularly summer on the busy island.
  A key factor that contributed to my decision to brave the logistical morass that is Seoul was the prospect of meeting up with fellow Birds Koreans and all-around good eggs Tim and Subho. Seeing Tim again was a treat, and we had a grand old time bantering about birds, Koreans, and everything in between.
  The first sign of trouble on Nami was the conspicuous lack of Korean birding paparazzi. The rare and twitchable birds of Nami are like honey to the swarms of camouflaged Korean guys with massive lenses, no binoculars, and often questionable fieldcraft/ethics. We wandered through the gaudy crowds for hours in a vain effort to spot one of the island's rarities, but the grim reality was evident fairly soon on - I'd waited perhaps one or two weeks too long to head up there, and the young birds had apparently already fledged and left the island.
  Not wanting to admit defeat, I told Subho to stay home, said my goodbyes to Tim, and got a room in dumpy and unfriendly Gapyeong. I was up before dawn on the 28th, and headed up a promising mountain in the hopes of running into a Ruddy Kingfisher. Awesome dawn chorus, but nothing crazy. I then made my way back through Seoul and headed home.
  What's the moral of this tale of woe? Don't twitch. Stay home and explore your own patch. Visit promising spots repeatedly, even if there are no interesting birds on a given day. Look at Google Earth, and think like a bird. Every spot has interesting birds moving through it at some point. Go find them.