Seoul June 2007

Jeremy Barker
Black-faced Spoonbill Platalea minor
Introduction

Seoul, South Korea had not been high on my list of places to visit, but the offer of a chance to attend the IAIA 2007 conference there was too good to miss. I was there for just a few days, although I managed to spend a couple of days afterwards seeing something of the city and a very little of the surrounding countryside.

Whilst I spent most of my time around the Coex centre, where the conference was held, I did manage to get out and about on a handful of occasions. Two visits to Bukansan NP, some wandering around local parks, the obligatory trip on the de-militarised zone (DMZ) tour and a much-needed escape to Ganghwa-Do island were the sum of my achievements. I did manage to get in contact with Nial Moores, the local contact and guide listed on BirdingPal, once before I left, but this was a non-starter, rather disappointingly.

A quick rundown of the sites visited follows:

Ganghwa-Do island

Lat-long

Visited by public transport from Seoul, with a friend from the conference, who very kindly put up with my desires to stop and stare at birds everywhere. The bus trip from the city centre was quite cheap (what?) and took about an hour and a half. The bus was comfortable and pleasant, and incidentally full of schoolchildren on our return, and people as usual in Seoul very helpful and pleasant.

From the central bus station at the end of the line, it was fairly easy to get another bus to Manisan, where we entered the National Park and climbed to the top of Mt Manisan. As usual in Korea (it seems) the world and his wife, their children, grandparents and various extended family members were out taking exercise. It always feels very busy outside, unfortunately, and makes birding a little difficult, but that's just tough! The views from the top were worth the climb in any case.

Returning to the bus stop, we discovered that there was a bus passing the Ganghwa Tidal Flats Centre soon, so hopped on to investigate. The lure of pamphlets with Black-faced Spoonbill on were too good to resist...! We were the only visitors, and everyone was desperate to make sure we gained the full experience, including a beautifully-filmed video in Korean about mudflat ecosystems! Scoping the mud outside produced a decent-sized flock of Far-eastern Curlew and plenty of Chinese Egrets, as well as a few fishing Japanese Cormorants, but little else.

We (I) then lucked out - the director of the centre came out to meet us - obviously a quiet day for him - and we chatted for a short while, although his English was only marginally better than my Korean. He then offered to take us to see Black-faced Spoonbill. Obviously, we couldn't take him up on that. Just kidding...! As we trundled down the road in his car, he explained that the spoonbills sometimes came in to feed and roost in the pool coming up on the right, and that we'd have a quick look just in case. There they were! Tucked into the pool, fast asleep... Typical spoonbills! We hopped out so I could gloat over them, and our friend then politely explained that we were looking at egrets, not spoonbills. Quiet consternation ensued, until we discovered he couldn't see the same section of pool as I could! After a little more gloating, we headed on to view one of the tiny colonies further along on the coast. This was followed by an impromtu meal of something odd at a roadside stall, where it seemed best to just ignore the state of the serving woman's hands, and eat the food... Good thing I have a fairly good constitution!

The final hour or so of the day we spent loafing at the beach - myself photographing Black-tailed Gulls and Aranka paddling in the mud, before catching the buses back to school.

Bukansan National Park

Lat-long

OK, this one's a bit odd. Three of us set out to Bukansan one morning, via the subway system, and spent a morning pottering around the park buffer zone. I then returned and discovered that this is also an 'unofficial' route into the park, through following the steady stream of small groups of Koreans walking into the park.

Hilly park south of the Coex centre

Lat-long

Walked here one morning from my hotel, taking me about an hour and a half. I wandered into the woods beside a market-cum-slum area, then headed up the hill, along the ridge and back down past the university tennis/badminton courts (wasn't paying attention to which sport was involved!)