So Rich and I bought a bike a couple of weekends ago so now we have two!!! Rich’s is a silver mountain bike (although it is a fold up) and it was a complete steal at 40,000W, or £20. So we went for what turned out to be a long, long bike ride. We rode through the lake park and around the back to the river where we had been before. Rich got an awesome picture of an Oriental Turtle Dove…
We also saw a Grey Heron in the river. I managed to get a couple of blurry, super zoomed in pictures…when I get my SLR with giant lens though that will be a thing of the past (I hope)…
Shame about the blur. So we continued on and got a couple of new ticks. We saw a Black-faced Bunting which was a cute little bird. Then the exciting one, my first shrike. I saw it sitting on a dead tree in the reeds and stayed long enough for us to get an ID of a Bull-Headed Shrike (I did not take this photo):
Photo from http://www.birdskorea.org/Images/images2007/Bull-headed-Shrike-BH.jpg
I was pretty excited about it, having never seen one in the UK. I also spotted two Falcated Teal, which is a really nice bird. Shame they weren’t close enough to get a decent picture. Here’s a nice stock photo:
Photo from http://www.birding.in/images/Birds/falcated_duck.jpg
Really smart birds. We also saw two types of cormorant (Great Cormorant and Temminck’s Cormorant) which we saw close together for a nice comparison. We rode on along the river and saw an unknown bird of prey. If I had to guess, I would say Hen Harrier but I have seen those before, and it really didn’t look like it and it didn’t look anything like the birds in my bird book so who knows?
We then saw the director of our school out doing some exercise, which was a tad embarrassing. He did tell us though that the Sihwa Reed Wetland Park was just down the bike path. Hooray!! We rode on because we had been looking forward to going here.
We arrived and went to the visitor centre, which is really nice. They have lots of beautiful bird photos there. The park itself was a bit barren because of all the bad weather we’ve been having. The grass is all yellow and dead, as are the reeds. But we did manage to see a few birds. There were tons of Vinous-throated Parrotbills. We saw a couple of flocks of about 40-50 birds. We also saw a Great White Egret and more Black-headed Buntings. However, we had left it a bit late to see all the ducks. They have already left so we’ll have to wait for winter to come around again to see them. Here’s some pictures that Rich took:
That’s the visitor centre in the distance.
Barren.
Me in classic birdwatching pose.
You can see the handy walkways through the reeds, which in summer will be warbler paradise I bet.
That’s about it for the photos. I think when it’s a bit greener and warmer it will be really nice. However, we were so tired when we got back. We did about 8 miles and on my crappy bike that made me very tired. But it was worth it. We just need to wait for a decent warm day and go back now…
