Asia - Korea

South Korea is a safe, modern, and generally friendly country that offers some of the best birdwatching in Asia. It does, however, remain something of an “unknown quantity” to many people, even to the swelling number of birders just across the water in Japan.

In winter South-Korea is one of the best birding places in the eastern paleartic to see rare ducks, gulls, cranes and raptors. Global threatened species like Swan Goose, Baikal Teal, Falcated Duck, Scaly-sided Merganser, Steller's Sea-eagle, Oriental Stork, Red-crowned, White-naped and Hooded Crane and Relict and Saunders's Gull are all possible within a two-week trip.

Most of the best birding is on the west coast, either on estuaries (Ganghwa, Yeong jeong Island, Saemangeum, and Geum River and estuaries), reclamation lakes (Seosan Lakes and Haenam area), or offshore islands (Daehuksan, Gaego, and Eocheong Do). However, there are some wonderful areas in the south (Jeju, Suncheon Bay, Nakdong Estuary, Joonam reservoirs and Guryongpo Peninsula), on the east coast, and in the north (e.g. Gwangneung National Arboretum and the Cheorwon Basin in the DMZ).

Steller's Sea-eagle, copyright Ian Merrill