The quest for the Rosy Finch

"I'm rare."

Sounds real manly, I'm aware.  This bird is super rare here, it's been seen less than 10 times in Korea.  On Saturday afternoon my Korean birding buddy tipped me off about the finch, and I jumped on old whitey and scooted out to meet him near Sanbangsan on the southwest coast.  The scoot out woke me up - it was super windy, and I was fighting hard not to get blown into adjacent lanes by the robust gustiness.  Once I met up with my KBB, we drove up to a remote cliff on the west coast.  We had to scale down this insane cliffside using a haggard old crumbling path.  Once at the bottom, we stared up at the cliff for ages, hoping to get finch-lucky.  What didn't help was the fact that the tide was all the way in, which meant frigid ankle-deep seawater every few seconds.  Also unhelpful, vis-a-vis trying to find the birds were the gale force winds.  Woke my ass up even more though.  After ages, 2 of the elusive pinky finches came down for a drink.  I about lost my mind.  I crept up and got a few decent shots.  High fives!  That's Korean bird #231 for me by the way.  Happy happy day.  I have a headache.