A few highlights from September in Shinsan Park:
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| Common Sandpiper |
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| Oriental Oriole |
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| Asian Brown Flycatcher |
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| White-backed Woodpecker on a palm tree |
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| Oriental Oriole with a caterpillar |
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| Lesser Cuckoo |
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| Blue-and-white Flycatcher in the shadows |
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| Striated Heron |
A morning trip out to the east coast of Jeju. It was a little unsuccesful due to my poor timing with the tides. Basically too high to see anything. But I did see a few Dunlins and a Great Knot bumping around. With extra time I went to Hado wetland, again not terribly exciting but the ducks were filling in. A Common Redshank was around, as was a Whiskered Tern perched up on the southwest end.
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| Mute Swan, this fella has been around in December 2024. |
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| Gargeny |
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| Great Knot prowling around the algae and lava rock. |
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| Common Redshank zooming by. |
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| Whiskered Tern perched on a wire. One of my favourite fall migrants. |
New weekend, new island. This time around I checked out Chuja Island in the north (technically islands because there's two connected by a bridge, but anyways...). The ferry ride on the way there was good for the usual: Common Terns, Streaked Shearwaters, and Red-necked Phalaropes.
The island itself was busy, but not exactly popping. Black-tailed Gulls and a Pacific Reef Heron in the harbour of Sangchuja, and some various migrants in the forests of Hachuja. Some raptors were seen from the top hill, mostly Chinese Sparrowhawks, and a resident Peregrine. An Oriental Reed Warbler in the small fragments of wetland left (it's slowly getting eaten up by development), and various wagtails hopping about.
The return ferry was a lot more exciting. From the start, a Japanese (Crested) Murrelet was seen flying low along the sea not too far from the island itself. Do they breed around here as well? More of the usual late summer seabirds as well. But absolute highlight was a small pod of three Orcas / Killer Whales seen about halfway between Chuja and Jeju. I couldn't believe my eyes, and I'm so happy I was able to document it (somewhat poorly) with photos and some video. Otherwise no one would have believed me, not even myself! This was the first time seeing Orcas in the wild, despite growing up in Vancouver which is famous for them. What a whale of a time this trip was.
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| Red-necked Phalaropes, seen from the ferry. |
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| Black-tailed Gull |
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| Eastern Yellow Wagtail |
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| Grey-streaked Flycatcher |
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| Green-winged Teal |
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| Warbling Whiteeye |
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| Oriental Turtledove |
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| Eastern Cattle Egret |
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| Grey-tailed Tattlers |
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| Oriental Reed Warbler |
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| Japanese Murrelet (poor photo but I promise that's what it was) |
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| Orca! |
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| Three Orcas! |
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| Three beautiful Orcas |
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| Streaked Shearwater |
Jeju only has one area with rice fields throughout the entire island, a decent sized crater next to Seogwipo City called Hanon. The area was flooded historically but was converted to agriculture use and is now used for very small scale rice production. I don't even know where they sell this rice, but it's there.
Rice fields in general are fantastic spots for birdwatching in Korea, so that makes Hanon a very special area. I never went there in the fall, so I went to check it out. It wasn't terribly birdy, but I did manage great views of a Pechora Pipit, a relatively common migrant in spring and fall, but difficult to get good views.
Plenty of butterflies were around, and surprisingly a brief encounter with a soft-shelled turtle. It was the first time seeing one on Jeju, perhaps it was an abandonded pet or some old stock from a restaurant.
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| Pechora Pipit, looking somewhat dainty in this photo. |
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| Pechora Pipit |
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| Pechora Pipit, getting a bit suspicious of my presence. |
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| A fairly decent sized group of Large-billed Crows. |
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| Papilio xuthus |
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| An Asian Soft-shelled Turtle: unsure if it's an Amur or Chinese. Could be either as they aren't native to Jeju. |
I took a short daytrip visit to Mara Island in early September to see what migration was looking like at that point. It was a hot day, so I was glad the visit was shortened a bit by other commitments. Plenty of Common Terns seen from the ferry, as well as some Streaked Shearwaters and Red-necked Phalaropes. The island itself had a decent variety of birds, not a massive amount of diversity or numbers but still some good ones. Several Siberian Blue Robins, a Paradise Flycatcher, Eastern-crowned Warblers, and a Red-necked Stint were among some of the birds present that day.
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| Zitting Cisticola in Moseulpo |
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| Black-winged Stilts in a small wetland near Unjin Harbour. |
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| Common Tern seen from the ferry. Great views! |
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| Immature Tiger Shrike |
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| Asian Brown Flycatcher, looking myserious in the shadows. |
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| Siberian Blue Robin, not quite blue yet. |
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| Pale-legged Leaf Warbler (call confirmed!) |
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| Red-necked Stint |
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| Common Tern seen from the return ferry. |
In early September I met up with visiting researcher Dr. Ru Somaweera, to help him in finding some local Jeju amphibians and reptiles. I decided to go with Halla Arboretum because it's close to the city and there's records for nearly all of the amphibians and reptiles of Jeju there.
We got incredibly lucky, partly due to my local knowledge, but also of his absolute expertise in finding species from these two groups. The most impressive was finding a Jeju Salamander in the tail end of summer, something I thought would be fairly difficult. We also found some frogs and snake species. A very successful trip and wonderful to show Dr. Ru around a little bit.
He has a successful Youtube channel, mostly in his native Sri Lankan, check out the Jeju video here:
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| Hynobius quelpaertensis |
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| Rana uenoi |
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| Bombina orientalis |
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| Gloydius ussuriensis |