Birds Korea - New Bird - White-crowned-Sparrow

White-crowned Sparrow: February 3^th 2002, Nakdong, Eulsuk Island

White-crowned Sparrow Zonotrichia leucophrys

On February 3rd, two Japanese birdwatchers (Nakano Yasunori and Matsuoka Keizo) stopped off at Eulsuk Island in the Nakdong estuary on a "sightseeing trip", and much to their delight found and photographed a first winter White-crowned Sparrow. They observed the bird for 15 minutes at close range in good light… This is the second American sparrow recorded in Korea. The other, Savannah Sparrow, was first recorded in 1998 in Korea, amazingly also at the Nakdong estuary, and also in February (see our New Korean Species Paper)!

According to Mark Brazil’s The Birds of Japan(1991), there are several records of White-crowned Sparrow from Japan, presumably of the subspecies gambelli, both in winter and during migration periods...one was even claimed in Fukuoka in the mid-1990s, only 200 km south of the location of this bird. Such records strongly suggest further records in Korea can be expected.