An overnight visit to Mara-do in late May always seems to be one of the more interesting birding experiences on the island. Spring migration has basically simmered down to a near end, with a lot of the diversity drastically dropping. However, there's a group of birds that show up late May that are very difficult to see, but make a late spring trip to any island worthwhile: the grasshopper warblers. Last year, I found a Baikal Bush Warbler, quite rare this far south in Korea during migration, and one of my birding highlights on Mara. So of course I wanted another try for one of these skulkers.
When I arrived the winds picked up, which ended up cancelling the boats later in the day. This ended up being fantastic for birding, as usually the island is crawling with tourists during the daytime, but now it felt like I had it all to myself aside form the locals. This lack of disturbance paid off as I was able to find my first Middendor's Grasshopper Warbler! I found a few, actually, but managed really nice photos of one individual. Another exciting higlight was a Gray's Grasshopper Warbler, which I heard singing in some shrubs on the south end in early evening. Unfortunately no good views, although I'm certain I did see it fly out for a brief moment after some playback.
The rest of the visit was nice, with lots of cuckoos, an Asian Koel, egrets, shrikes, and a Swinhoe's White-eye. Boats were running the next day, and I managed to see some dolphins on the way back to Moseulpo. So, pretty much a perfect visit by late spring standards.
eBird checklists here:
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| Streaked Shearwaters |
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| Medium Egret (formerly Intermediate, both fairly unsatisfactory names) |
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| Eastern Cattle Egrets |
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| Oriental Cuckoo |
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| Kamchatka Leaf Warbler - fairly numerous on Jeju in mid to late May, sometimes into early June. |
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| Kamchatka Leaf Warbler |
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| Blue Rock Thrush |
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| Eurasian Tree Sparrow |
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| Common Cuckoo |
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| Black Drongo |
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| Tiger Shrike |
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| Black-browed Reed Warbler |
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| Middendorf's Grasshopper Warbler - Oh yeah! |
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| Middendorf's Grasshopper Warbler |
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| Large-billed Crow |
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| Brown Shrike |
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| Asian Brown Flycatcher |
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| Tiger Shrike |
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| Yellow-rumped Flycatcher |
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| Black Drongo |
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| Chinese Pond Heron |
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| Oriental Reed Warbler |
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| White-cheeked Starlings |
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| Eurasian Starling, or Common Starling |
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| Light-vented Bulbul, otherwise known as Chinese Bulbul |
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| Large-billed Crow |
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| Black-browed Reed Warbler |
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| Vanessa sp. |
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| Dollarbird |
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| Blue-and-white Flycatcher |
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| Swinhoe's White-eye - another hard to find bird for Jeju (or perhaps simply underreported) |
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| Tiger Shrike |
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| Chinese Pond Heron |
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