10,000 Birds

Counting by three teams during the early morning spring high tide throughout the Geum Estuary (mainland and on Yubu Island) found 23 species and approximately 45 000 individuals of shorebird (meeting several Ramsar criteria for identification as an internationally important wetland - therefore, as South Korea is a Ramsar signatory, the Geum Estuary should be afforded protection), with most numerous being:

• Dunlin: 16 370 - observations of flagged birds in East Asia indicate many are of the subspecies articola, which breeds on the Alaskan north slope: total flyway population of 950 000, so 1.5% at Geum, and almost 4% within Saemangeum system.
• Bar-tailed Godwit: 12 460 - ca 90% of those now present are considered to be of the race/subspecies baueri (subspecific identification based on flags, colour bands and on rump pattern). Baueri spend the boreal winter in New Zealand, and breeds in NE Siberia and Alaska. The estimated population of baueri is only 155 000, therefore ca 7% of this total is now staging at the Geum estuary.
• Great Knot: 10 429 - seems to be declining. Estimated population of 380 000, so right now 2-3% of all the world’s Great Knots are at the Geum, with a further 7 or 8% in the Saemangeum system.
• Far Eastern Curlew: 2 560 - has a global population of 38 000 - so about 7% are at the Geum and another 6% within Saemangeum.
• Grey/Black-bellied Plover: 2 194 - with a Flyway population of only 125 000, with breeding across East Asia into Alaska, 2000 at the Geum represents almost 2% of the total, with a further 1% on the Mangyeung. Peak arrivals should come in late April/early May.
• ‘Eastern Oystercatcher’: 862 - Haematopus (ostralegus) osculans, a distinctive taxon and very likely a full species with a population estimate of only 10 000: therefore 8% are at the Geum now (many birds setting up territories), with 30% to 50% recorded in previous winters.

‘Eastern’ Oystercatchers Haematopus (ostralegus) osculans, a distinctive and possibly threatened taxon
Photos © Nial Moores

In addition, on Yubu Island (part of the Geum Estuary) there were between:

• 11 and 14 Nordmann’s Greenshank (a species with a global population estimated at less than ONE THOUSAND)
• A possible Spoon-billed Sandpiper (a species that appears to stage almost entirely in South Korea, rapidly declining, and with a probable global population of less than FIVE HUNDRED), along with a breeding-plumaged Black-faced Spoonbill (an endemic breeding species to the northern Yellow Sea with a global population of less than FIFTEEN HUNDRED)
• and ca 25 Saunders’s Gull (another bird endemic to East Asia, also declining and threatened by ‘reclamation projexts’, and with a global population estimated at less than ten thousand).

Nordmann’s Greenshank Tringa guttifer, photo © Nial Moores

Other migrants on Yubu Island included ca 25 Red-flanked Bluetail, 150 Brambling, 4+ Grey-backed Thrush, 4 Eastern Crowned and 2 Yellow-browed Warblers, single male Tristram’s Bunting and female Siberian Blue Robin and an Intermediate Egret.