Birdcatching on Mara-do

Japanese Thrush getting leg-ringed

The boys in the woods

Blue-and-white Flycatcher getting leg-ringed

Yellow dust = no Mount Halla

Like spilling a box of noisy, rude crayons

Badly in need of some high-rise apartments

I took my first trip to Mara-do of the spring on Saturday.  Mara Island is South Korea's southernmost bit of real estate, and as such, large numbers of Koreans drive around it in big, enclosed golf carts.  Super.  It's also the best place in town to find exhausted/rare migrating birds.  I bumped into some Korean bird research guys I know hiding in the woods there. They were catching birds in nets, and ringing and measuring them.  I got to help them free a couple from the nets, and they even let me release a few when they were done.  That was fairly awesome.  The guys looked confused as I bid a little high-pitched farewell to each bird I released.  You can't tell me what to do!  Anyhow, I picked up a sexy lifer (Japanese Thrush), and got a few decent pics of some other stuff.