"THE PAST IS A WHOLE OTHER COUNTRY" (Who said that?)

To: Tom Besser (WSU), and interested others.

(I wrote this before I peeked at my email a few minutes ago, so it may not
coordinate with your latest message).

I'd like to add some more to my last reply on the subject of South Korea.
I assume you're going to take "The Firld Guide to the Birds of Japan"
with you to seoul. Another book I came across and recomend reading is
"The Birds of Korea" (1971) by M>E>I> Gore and Won Pyong-Oh (?). Maybe
you can find it through interlibrary loan. It is primarily an annotated
checklist with a few color plates and B&W photos of habitat sites, etc.
It gives a feel for the country. The introduction gives you an idea what
to expect by habitat. The section on cities and towns should prove very
helpful. I only wish I had access to such books back in the early 60's
before I became a more or less organized lister a la ABA. Bird watching
for me was just one set of threads in the fabric of my adventure there in
Korea. I got the impression from the book that there is still a lot of
field research to be done! But maybe that has been rectified in the mean
time. It makes the point that Buddhist Monestaries, as well as Yi/Silla)
Dynasty Tombs have some the very last mature stands of mature forests.
If you're lucky, you can see the White-Backed Woodpecker there (the
largest of the former Dendrocopus genus).

I was going to mention about the DMZ, but I see you're already familiar
with that area. I never got up that far myself.

While I was there, rail was the way to travel between Seoul and
Taegu/Pusan. That may still be the case. So if you have the time, take
the train and survey the landscape. I once stayed at the Haeundai Beach
resort area complex (Pusan) for a Post Engineer conference on insect and
rodent control. If that is still there, it'd be a good place for you to
overnight. I lunched (twice) on giant abalone that I picked out myself
at a local waterfront restaurant. I was also shown a fish market that
looked like a Marine Biology museum, with just about every critter big
enough to eat form the Sea of Japan and beyond. One sand sold chunks of
whale meat ready to eat with a layer of blubber and patch of black skin
still attached (Pilot Whale?). It looked like pot roast, but tasted
fishy - I could only handle 2 or 3 bites. You can see Tsushima Island
(Japan) form the beach in good weather.

I onced dined on Greater White-Fronted Goose in Taegu, where I was
stationed. An NCO acquintence, who was also a hunter, noticed that a
"Papasan", dressed in traditional whites with a black stove-pipe hat,
A-frame rack, and walking stick could walk among the wild geese in the
rice paddies without alarming them. So this guy, using good ole American
ingenuity, borrowed some cooks whites, donned a black stove-pipe hat and
A-frame, and used his shotgun as a walking stick. He came back with 3
or 4 fine specimens of GWFG (orange-billed form). I never did see any
live ones myself, so I am still wondering weather the one I dined on is
countable - ha ha! I did see hundreds (thousands?) of generic wild
geese wintering in the huge commercial rice fields west of Pusan while
riding by in the train. The geese closest to the train turned out to be
the darker Bean Geese, which I identified retroactively. From what I
gather, Bean Geese are the commonest wintering goose in South Korea.

I also had the opportunity, again in Taegu, to dine on "Water Deer"
(Hydropotes inermis), an antlerless deer with tusks. It had fattened up
in a rice paddie area, and was tender and delicious!

Sayonara,

Phil Hotlen, Bellingham, WA