Korea Through Her Birds: Windows into a World
- Author : Robert Newlin
- Publisher : Seoul Selection
- Pub. Date : June 2013
- Cover : Softcover
- Dimensions (in inches) : 9.25x7.48x0.63
- Pages : 244
- ISBN : 9781624120060
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Description
Korea’s birds deserve a wider audience. The country’s geographical location, topography, temperate climate, and wealth of diverse habitats combine to support an extraordinarily attractive avifauna. Many visitors to Korea see the impressive metropolitan centers of Seoul or Busan, and others may visit Jejudo Island’s black sand beaches or hike the popular mountain trails. Fewer see the more hidden parts of the country: the western offshore islands, the scattered and diminishing wetlands, the picturesque east coast fishing villages, the mountain hamlets and the river valleys.
We can glimpse these places through the birds that live there. Moreover, we can glimpse something else—hints of Korea’s people, culture, and history. A picture of a bird yields a narrow but genuine window into a country’s identity. What a country’s arts or folklore or language says about nature—or says by means of nature—has a special authenticity.
Above all, there are the birds themselves, in all their many types of beauty. This book seeks to introduce the birds: through photographs, through descriptions of their lives, and through the ways our different cultures, Western and Asian both, perceive them.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11
INTRODUCTION 13
Chapter 1 WINDOWS 17
Grey-headed Woodpecker 20
White’s Thrush 22
Eurasian Kestrel 24
Eurasian Sparrowhawk 26
White-throated Rock Thrush 28
Chestnut Bunting 30
Varied Tit 32
Stejneger’s Stonechat 34
Long-tailed Tit 36
Arctic Warbler 38
Alpine Accentor 40
Chestnut-flanked White-eye 42
Chinese Grosbeak 44
Bull-headed Shrike 46
Daurian Redstart 48
Chapter 2 CURTAINS 51
Grey Heron 54
Oriental Scops Owl 56
Brown Hawk Owl or Northern Boobook 58
Yellow-breasted Bunting 60
Eagle Owl 62
Long-tailed Shrike & Chinese Penduline Tit 64
Rhinocerous Auklet 66
Eastern Crowned Warbler 68
Brown Shrike 70
Common Pheasant 72
Oriental Reed Warbler 74
Yellow Wagtail 76
Cattle Egret 78
Chapter 3 MOTION 81
Little Tern 84
Hen Harrier 86
Far-eastern Oystercatcher 88
Naumann’s Thrush 90
Eurasian Bullfinch 92
Japanese White-eye & Common Rosefinch 94
Eurasian Nuthatch 96
Terek Sandpiper 98
Spectacled Guillemot 100
Common Sandpiper 102
Black-winged Stilt 104
Black-faced Spoonbill 106
Ancient Murrelet 108
Chapter 4 CURTAINS 51
Grey Heron 54
Oriental Scops Owl 56
Brown Hawk Owl or Northern Boobook 58
Yellow-breasted Bunting 60
Eagle Owl 62
Long-tailed Shrike & Chinese Penduline Tit 64
Rhinocerous Auklet 66
Eastern Crowned Warbler 68
Brown Shrike 70
Common Pheasant 72
Oriental Reed Warbler 74
Yellow Wagtail 76
Cattle Egret 78
Chapter 5 MOTION 81
Little Tern 84
Hen Harrier 86
Far-eastern Oystercatcher 88
Naumann’s Thrush 90
Eurasian Bullfinch 92
Japanese White-eye & Common Rosefinch 94
Eurasian Nuthatch 96
Terek Sandpiper 98
Spectacled Guillemot 100
Common Sandpiper 102
Black-winged Stilt 104
Black-faced Spoonbill 106
Ancient Murrelet 108
Chapter 6 MYUNG-AM 179
White-bellied Green Pigeon 182
Spotted Dove 184
Japanese Robin 186
Hawfinch 188
Japanese Grosbeak 190
Japanese Wagtail 192
Black Paradise Flycatcher 194
Siberian Accentor 196
Black Brant 198
Falcated Duck 200
Common Snipe 202
Short-eared Owl 204
Blue-and-white Flycatcher 206
Green Sandpiper 208
Chapter 7 DIMINISHING FRAMES 211
Ruddy Kingfisher 214
Curlew Sandpiper 216
Eurasian Spoonbill 218
Ruddy Crake 220
Bar-tailed Godwit 222
Brambling 224
Great Knot 226
Grey-capped Woodpecker 228
Plumbeous Redstart 230
Asian Stubtail & Oriental Cuckoo 232
White-backed Woodpecker 234
Pallas’s Reed Bunting 238
Scaly-sided Merganser 240
ENVOI 243
- Press Release
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About the Author
Robert Newlin has watched birds since he was about five years old. Early experiences included many Christmas and May counts, banding work, waterfowl surveys on Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay area, and, during university years, summer positions doing breeding bird surveys for the Smithsonian Institute. He holds a BA (Wesleyan University) and PhD (Rutgers University) in literature, specializing in medieval beast literature and natural-historical writings, especially in English, Latin, and French. Recent research has focused upon East Asian birds in nature and in culture. Professor Newlin has taught Comparative and English Literatures at various universities in the United States and Korea—most recently at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. His writings and bird photographs have been published in a number of books and journals in the United States, Europe, and Asia.
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