Sooty Tern
Photo © Changnyung KFEM

Following the severe weather Korea experienced in the last week of July and first week of August 2002 (related to typhoons further south), this Sooty Tern was found in the Nakdong River at Namji on the 8th Aug and taken into care by a local group, the Changnyung KFEM, who tried to rehabilitate it.

Unfortunately, despite their best efforts, this moribund bird was beyond recovery and died on the 10th.

Many thanks to Dr Park Jin-young who has commented that this is just the third documented record of Sooty Tern in Korea, following the first at Busan in Aug 1999, and the second in the Mangyeung River in Aug 2000. It would appear from this that those birders in Korea who'd like to see a Sooty Tern, need to be out and about in August…