To say that gull watching is an acquired taste would be to ignore the fact that many birders never do acquire the taste. However, on two consecutive tours to South Korea many of those accompanying me have started out as skeptics but have quickly found watching large numbers of gulls and a wide variety of species, not to mention a large variety of plumages, enjoyable, not withstanding that the main reason to visit are birds such as Steller’s Sea Eagle, Red-crowned Crane, White-naped Crane & Scaly-sided Merganser. This owes no small amount to the fact that there are a couple of globally rare species to be seen in Relict Gull and Saunders’s Gull but also because they can be observed at close proximity and in numbers that can be quite spectacular. However, this in itself has certainly not been the only reason for the group enjoying studying gulls, a large portion of the enjoyment has been learning from an expert who is extremely knowledgeable and patient in Nial Moores who is able to pass on his knowledge in an interesting way. For those that are photographers the gulls present an excellent series of opportunities throughout the tour as you will see from the following set of photos.

Details of the next trip can be seen here – South Korea Winter Birding Tour.

Firstly, let’s not pretend that gull identification is easy. This group of birds is probably one of the most confusing there is and lots of practice is needed to get even a basic understanding of many of these birds. Gulls of Europe, Asia & North America is a good reference book but rather heavy to carry around. Although limited in what it can cover, Birds of East Asia does a better than average job of dealing with gulls for a field guide.

One of the commonest East Asian gulls in South Korea is Vega Gull. It is more or less the East Asian version of Herring Gull although it is rather less bulky than that bird and fairly easy to tell apart if they were side by side. Although it is not really a very exciting species, it is frequently a lifer for visitors here if they have not visited the region before. The subadult birds can be confusing though, as with many large gull species.

Adult winter Vega Gull

First winter Vega Gull

Harder to pick out from the crowds are tamyrensis Heuglin’s Gulls. They are usually a bit darker on the back, a bit heavier billed and the head streaking moults sooner on adults to give a whiter head white dark streaking down the back of the head. This one is rather easy to pick out because of the yellowish hue to its legs.

Heuglin’s Gull tamyrensis

For anyone wanting to see and photograph Black-tailed Gull then South Korea is an ideal place as this species is present all year round and rather common. Juveniles and first winter birds are one of the easier gulls to identify here, being quite sooty in colour; actually they are very smart birds when seen well and in good light and we enjoyed the last hour of light near Sokcho photographing some.

First winter Black-tailed Gull

First winter Black-tailed Gull

Adult Black-tailed Gulls are crisply-marked birds too and although they look fairly similar to a lot of large gulls they are in fact much smaller than species such as Vega, Heuglins and suchlike. They have quite distinctive bills too, long and slightly drooping, well-marked with a red tip..

Adult winter Black-tailed Gull

One of the most impressive things about watching gulls in South Korea in winter is the huge numbers in which they congregate. The flock in the photo below took off from a beach as a White-tailed Eagle flew overhead and this photo represents just a fraction of the 2000+ birds that were in flight at the time.

Gull Flock

When this flock settled down we had a great time scanning through to pick out lots of different species including Vega, Black-tailed, Glaucous, Slaty-backed, Heuglin’s, Mongolian and probable Steppe Gulls. The big attraction for them was an abundance of fish eggs being washed up on the beach upon which the gulls were gorging. In addition the beach is very close to the North Korean border and there are iron railings as “protection” with the net effect of keeping people off of the beach and reducing disturbance to the birds.

Adult winter Glaucous Gull with crop full of fish eggs

Adult winter Mongolian Gull

Adult winter Slaty-backed Gull

First winter Mongolian Gull

The photo above shows a first winter Mongolian Gull. In my opinion this is a very handsome gull and easy to identify because of all the large first winter gulls it moults very early into a pale-headed plumage and has distinctive markings on the mantle and back. Below is the same bird alongside a first winter Vega Gull.

First winter Mongolian & Vega Gulls

Slaty-backed Gull is another East Asian bird which is frequently a lifer for visitors to South Korea. Adult birds are easy enough to deal with due to their dark coloration but younger birds can be quite confusingly pale and trick observers into thinking it is a Glaucous-winged Gull or something else.

First winter Slaty-backed Gull

Adult winter Slaty-backed Gull

Probably the most anticipated gull here is Relict Gull. This is a globally rare bird with an estimated declining world population of 10000 birds or less and is listed as vulnerable. On each of the winter tours I have led to South Korea we have found this bird although this year we only saw one individual and it was not close enough to photograph well. Below is a photo from a previous year’s trip.

Relict Gull

Another one of the most sought-after gulls in this region is Saunders’s Gull. This small gull is quite graceful and can occur in large flocks. We saw it at several locations this year but made a special effort to get close to them and obtain some nice photos on our last morning.

Saunders’s Gull

Saunders’s Gull

Saunders’s Gull is a fairly easy bird to identify among the other gulls in South Korea but one of the hardest is “Steppe” Gull. No taxonomy seems to be able to agree on what this taxon actually is, whether it is a subspecies of Lesser Black-backed, Caspian or a full species so it is better just to refer to it by its scientific name barabensis. We identified the bird pictured below as a very probable barabensis due to its bill pattern with a white tip, its small eye, its narrow bill, rounded head and smallish overall appearance in comparison to other birds nearby. It certainly conforms to all the field markings referred to in gull literature and was obviously different to everything else around it based on structural differences and moult phase.

Probable Steppe Gull Larus barabensis

Another difficult taxon to get to grips with in detail is Common Gull. Two subspecies occur in South Korea in winter; heinei and kamtschatschensis. These two are hard to tell apart and we struggled to do so, proving that nobody has all the answers but they made nice photographic subjects nonetheless. Presumably most of the birds we saw were kamtschatschensis particularly these rather dirty individuals below.

First winter Common Gull

First winter Common Gull

Although gulls are not the main reason for most people to visit South Korea in the winter one of the nice things about them is that they are abundant, easy to approach and often photogenic as I hope some of the following photos prove.

Adult winter Glaucous Gull

First winter Vega Gull

Adult winter Slaty-backed Gull

Adult winter Glaucous-winged Gull

The Glaucous-winged Gull was one of a handful of this particular species that we saw. On every winter trip I lead here we see small numbers of this species but a number of them are hybrids although this one is genuine enough. However, this first winter bird below was possibly less convincing to experts.

First winter Glaucous-winged Gull, possible hybrid

First winter American Herring Gull

Nial Moores also picked out one first winter American Herring Gull and explained to us through a process of elimination how we could rule out other species on moult, structure and colouration. And just to be complete here is the only photo I took of a Black-headed Gull in South Korea although they are rather common along the west coast.

Adult winter Black-headed Gull

I am now looking forward to planning the next winter tour to South Korea; come for the Cranes, Steller’s Sea Eagle, Japanese Wagtail, Scaly-sided Merganser, Solitary Snipe, Oriental Stork, Wildfowl and raptors but also come and enjoy seeing huge numbers of gulls and learning something about them too. If you would like to join me on the next tour you can see the itinerary and details here – South Korea Winter Birding Tour.