May Update

Nothing much new to report over here, still having a fantastic time. A lot of us are starting to count down the days until our contracts are finished. Not because we want to go, but we are on the home stretch. Personally, I've got about 4 months left on my contract - followed by some traveling. Many of my friends are signing new contracts because there are a lot of lucrative contracts available. People are getting a lot more money for a lot less work than what we signed up for. Our employers have told us that they want to resign us, and that everything is negotiable. Curt and I kind of played dumb because there is no way we are working for these guys again. We like working for them, but I think they are to cheap to even come close to matching what other schools offer. It's not in my plans to stay here another year, but I'm tempted to come back if I can get the right contract.

On May 15th it was teachers day here in Korea. We were hoping the kids would rain gifts down upon us the way I was shelling out candy and pencils on children's day just a week earlier. Out of all my students I only received one little box of chocolates. I guess the kids have a short memory - or just don't like me. Curtis only got one gift as well, but he got a whole freakin' cake. We ate half of it and then re-gifted the rest of it to Roy for his birthday! For my birthday, Roy got me a chair he found in the garbage, so it all kind of evens out. Roy is the master of finding things in the trash. I think half of his furniture, and all of his decorative touches in his room he found in the garbage. My aquarium I also owe to Roy's sharp eyes.

Speaking of aquarium, remember how I talked about my fish's fantastic escape / suicide attempt and how I revived him. Well, I didn't learn my lesson. I didn't find a lid for it and jumped out again, only this time we were too late when we found him. Rigamortis had set in, he was gone. We were all pretty shocked and saddened by the event. It was just last week at my birthday party that I fed him a nice juicy goldfish that he gobbled up to everyone's delight. After I found him, I put him in the fridge, and now in the freezer, so that we can give him a burial service soon. I think I'm going to bury him in the garden we have on the roof. By garden, I mean concrete box filled with dirt and dead weeds. I constructed a cross out of chopsticks, even though Oscar was of no religious denomination. Today I went out and bought Oscar II. That won't be his final name, but it's good enough for now. My previous fish was a red and white albino type oscar, and this one is the more classic red and black coloration. I promise to work on a lid soon, I don't want to lose another one.

Above is my original oscar "Oscar". Below is my new one.

Saemangeum

Pictures are up for the trip we took to Mt. Bisuelsan. In some of the pics you can see its really hazy; that's the poor air quality we talk about and is the "yellow dust' from China I think. I wiped a bunch of yellow dust off of my bookshelf in my classroom, and saw some cars just covered with it. I was sniffling for a few days but I'm not if it was from the yellow dust, or some pollen in the air, or a combination of the two.

My birthday landed on a three day weekend and I took off by myself to the west coast to help count shorebirds (Saemangeum Shorebird Monitoring Program) with a bunch of other volunteers. I won't talk too much about the importance of this project, the significance of the area etc, but I recommend you read about it and look at pictures on the BirdsKorea website: http://www.birdskorea.org/Habitats/Wetlands/Saemangeum/BK-HA-Saemangeum-Mainpage.shtml
The goal of the program is to "gather scientifically rigorous data on the numbers of Great Knot and other shorebird species remaining in Korea, helping to assess the impacts of tidal-flat reclamation, and supporting domestic and international calls for the conservation of shorebirds and their highly threatened tidal-flat habitat."- Birds Korea
Most people were from Australia, there were a few Thai boys, kiwis, and one Korean. I think I was the only North American. We all stayed in the XY motel, one of about a hundred "love" motels in the area. One room was used as an office and that's where we ate breakfast, made our lunches, and hung out every night to discuss the plans for the next day. My room had a vending machine in it that contained various drinks, snacks, sex related things - some things I'm not quite sure what they were for.

Actual official counting got delayed two days because some people were still doing the nation wide survey so we did some sightseeing, birdwatching, and a little bit of counting. I spent most of my time with these two old Australian ladies that loved to take care of me, making sure I got water and vegetables. The downside was that the one lady was the most terrifying driver I have ever been with. The right side of the car was always on the verge of being in the grass, and when I pointed out a pile of rocks on the road to avoid, she lined the car up and ran right over them putting a big hole in the tire. I tried to change the tire, but we didn't have anything to get the bolts off with, and the jack itself wasn't proper. Luckily, the other car was with us and me and another guy had to find a tire guy that could come and help us. I guy drove out and fixed us up for only 20$ so that was good. It did waste a lot of precious time and I think everyone was a little more than annoyed. I suggested that this is the time when someone finds a rare bird, and the breakdown happened for a reason, and everything works out in the end. Moments later, that's exactly what happened! While the tire was getting changed someone spotted a Japanese Nightheron at the edge of the forest, maybe the 15th record for Korea. It was a new bird for everyone, and we are told they are highly endangered and there are only 500 left in the world! It was really exciting and lifted everyone's spirits! After that, we checked out a national park and a temple. All the temples, and streets in Daegu, have colourful lanterns up celebrating Buddhas birthday. On the way back to the hotel, we pulled over to let the other car lead and we rubbed the whole car up against a concrete barrier. No real damage to the beater car we were driving, but how she has not killed someone yet I'll never know.

The next day we focused on the shorebirds and spent the day at the ocean and tidal flats outside of the seawall at the Geum river estuary. The area is so vast that you can only cover little parts of it each day. The best way to count the birds is to wait for the tide to come in so that all the birds get pushed off the tidal flats and congregate on whatever land is left. Its really interesting to watch the tide come in and wave after wave of shorebirds flying in to roost. I think the flock grew to about 13000 birds by the end. Some of us had moved on by that point, but I could still see them in the distance and it was quite a site when they took off. By the end of the day I had seen some really interesting birds, many of them new for me, but the one I wanted most, the spoon-billed sandpiper still eluded me. Its the bird that everyone wants to see here, more than anything else because there are only about 300 left in the world according to some people.

My last day counting shorebirds a young Aussie joined me and the two ladies to count shorebirds inside the seawall at a place called Simpo. It used to be a fantastic site where tens of thousands of birds used to come, but we only managed to count 2000. The tidal flats spread as far as you can see in all directions during low tide, but much of it gets covered during high tide. Despite the lack of numbers there was a good mix of species and after about an hour of searching we managed to spot a spoon-billed sandpiper! It was really exciting and the highlight of my trip. It was the ladies idea to come to this site, and they spotted the bird so they get all the credit. I'm really thankful I got put in their car. After that excitement we got down to the business of counting, even though it was low tide, and we walked out to this newly formed island. The tide ended up coming in much faster than expected and soon we were cut off from the mainland by about 100m of knee deep water! We all had to get a little wet to make it back to dry land. Also, at this site we found two Bar-tailed Godwits (large shorebird) with leg flags. Leg flags are colourful "flags" that people attach so that data can be gathered on individual birds. For example, you can learn about migration routes by finding these birds at different places. Also, we had to record how fat they were and what plumage they were in (1-5 scale for fatness, and 1-7 scale for winter to summer plumage). They flag thousands of birds, but you'll only be able to find a few of them later. Our two birds originated in Australia, one from the west coast and the other from the east coast.

It was sad to go the next day, just when the count was really getting going. Although, I think they are having to wake up at like 4:00 in the morning these days! I met some interesting people, exchanged email addresses and found out about various projects going on in the Yellow Sea region as well as in Australia. If I'm ever in the area again, and they find more funding to keep the project going, I think I'll try and volunteer for a much longer period of time.

Vending machine is on the right.
Here is a Panorama from the seawall. The left side is the Yellow Sea, the right side is inside the wall.
Here is a map of what Saemangeum is supposed to be turned into. In reality, they have found they can't use the land for crops, so it will be developed into a commercial zone likely.
This is part of our group looking at the heron when we broke down. The two ladies in the foreground are the people I spent the most time with - the driver on the right. In the background you can see tobacco.
Here is a grainy photo I took through the scope.
Panorama at "Shellfish". The water comes in and shorebirds swarm this area.
Here is the beginning of birds arriving..I wish I had of stayed until there were 10000 birds, I don't know why I didn't.
Simpo panorama inside the seawall area, the seawall is 15 km away I think. All the brown plants you see were planted to try and stabilize the soil and get rid of some of the salt maybe. Water no longer reaches this part, its essentially a desert.

Here is a 360 degree view from the island that formed when the tide went out.

Here is me on the island, not looking impressed about the water that cut us off from dry land out of view to the right.
Here is us talking about how fast the water came in.

Two pictures of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper, obviously don't do it justice.
Here are pictures of Bar-tailed godwits with leg flags on them. The pictures are used to show us how to scale their plumages. Top 8 are males, bottom 4 are females - red is summer plumage.

Mt. Biseulsan

Yesterday Curt and I finally made it Mt. Biseulsan so see the field of azaleas that are supposed to be so spectacular this time of year. Because we had to work at 3:45 it meant we had to leave really early in the morning. We got up at 5:45, and made it out the door shortly thereafter. After a 25 minute subway ride we got on a bus for the next hour and 15 minutes - standing for a good chunk of the time. We hadn't been on the bus more than 5 minutes when it got rear ended by a small red car. The bus was fine, but the car has seen better days. Curt ran out and got a picture and then jumped back on the bus. We got to the mountain and started the climb to the top, I think it was over 2km the sign said, and steep! It took us about an hour going at a fairly fast pace, and we were feeling it. I don't know if it was the heat (25C?), and the poor air quality, but we were really sucking wind. The scenery was nice, and since we left so early there weren't many Koreans on the trail either. When we did get to the top it was definitely worth it. We forgot how easy it was to walk on level ground as well. The view was really nice from the top, and we climbed a mountain when normally we would have slept until noon or something. The flowers were nice, although not as showy as we had hoped. I think the weather might have affected how many blooms they produced. We had a nice picnic at the top and rested for a good while before heading back down. There was a guy selling ice cream by this point - an old man hauled up two giant packbacks full of ice cream and ice. We got a couple and started down the mountain, at which time there was a steady stream of Koreans coming up the hill. The looks of exhaustion were priceless, sweat streaming down their faces. We knew we must have looked like that before. I felt it was kind of cruel eating these ice cream treats in front of them, but oh well. Going back down was much easier, but much more dangerous as well. If you fall up a mountain you don't die, its falling down the mountain that is the problem. We survived the slippery terrain and a few loose rocks. Curt kicked a loose rock off the trail, but it tumbled down the mountain and if the trail had of happened to bend that way, some Koreans might of had to duck for cover. The mountain also has an interesting topography. There are literally rivers of rocks/ boulders 1-2 metres in length that are from the last ice age. Apparently a very rare feature, and quite striking as nothing grows on them. At the bottom we treated ourselves to a beer, and the people gave us a bunch of free food. One item was pig skin, chewy, not delicious, but spicy enough that who knows what pig skin really tastes like. I have pics, but I'm pressed for time today and might not be able to edit them etc, so you'll have to wait until next week sometime when I get back.

While on the mountain I saw a Common Crossbill (Red Crossbill we call them) feeding a fledgling. Crossbills have beaks that are crossed at the end so that they can open pine cones and eat their seeds. It was surprising to see this bird as normally they are only here in the winter, and even then I didn't one this winter. I emailed BirdsKorea and was surprised to find out that my sighting was more important than I thought. Although some individuals are rarely seen in the summer, because i saw the female feeding a young bird, this was the first confirmed case of the Common Crossbill breeding on the whole Korean peninsula! Unfortunately I didn't take a picture, but its not a hard species to identify so its an acceptable record I imagine. Proof is always nice though. Speaking of BirdsKorea, tomorrow is my birthday and I'm heading to the west coast to help in a shorebird survey. The most important shorebird staging area in Asia in at this site - a site which has been destroyed to do development. Korea built a 33-mile long seawall in order to develop 155 square miles of tidal area. The place is called Saemangeum and there will be people from Australia and various other places doing surveys and other research. If you want to know more, check out the BirdsKorea website. I'll be there for 3 days before I have to come back to Daegu.

Also this week, the production of videos continues. I have to go shoot what I hope is my last video this morning. We got to watch the finish products of our videos after editing etc, and we think they are hilarious. It might only be funny to us since we all went though it, but I can probably give you the link to the LIKE website if you want to see them. All of us are called professors in the opening credits, and in our first videos you can see how nervous all of us are. Are voices are unsteady, and I think my hand was shaking at one point. Also, you can see the various techniques we use when we don't really know what we are talking about. Mumbling, saying a few words that don't make sense, telling the student to refer to the textbook is a classic. We relate these moments to the moments at our universities when the professor would take an extra long sip of coffee.

One last thing. I came back home one day after lunch, and my fish was missing! I couldn't find him, I checked everywhere. Finally we found him under my dresser - or at least we thought it might be him because he was covered in sooo much hair and lint- he looked more like a mouse. I used a pair of chopsticks to poke him out, and was quite saddened to see him in such a state. He had been out of the water for at least 45 minutes. Then, we saw just a flicker of a tail movement. I quickly washed him off and dumped him back in the tank - where he sank like a rock. I grabbed him and tried moving him back and forth for a while trying to get water to move across his gills. I even held his mouth open underneath the filter so water would rush past his gills. In the end he made a miraculous recovery! I still can't believe it really, and I really should put a lid on my tank so it doesn't happen again. He loves jumping out at my fingers when I feed him, but I don't know why he jumped out this time. He cleared at lest 3-4 inches to get out.

The tiny red car that smushed itself against our crowded bus.

Natural rock "rivers" that are all over the mountain, these boulders are huge.

Three colors of azaleas that were planted near the bottom of the mountain. I think only the pink/purple ones are native.

Me at the top, chilling on a rock enjoying the view.

Above is what the mountain is supposed to look like. Below are pictures of what the mountain actually looked like.

Curt enjoying his icecream on the way down the path with a bunch of Koreans, doing his best Korean impression giving the peace sign/victory sign. They always do that in photos.

Here are a couple of views from the top. The top one shows the view to the south; we climbed up through the valley.