Having to look up something related to Korea, I noticed how many photos I have of Buddhist temples there. I haven't been to Korea since 2005, but in the preceeding decade I went many times for conferences and to develop and teach training courses in marine environmental science. Each time I went, I took some time for myself to visit Buddhist temples. They are great for birdwatching, and the monks grow and serve the best tea I've found anywhere.
The South Seas Institute where I taught is on Goege Island, just off the south coast. Near it is the town of Tongyeong on the mainland, which lies in the lee of Miruksan, or Mt. Miruk, a great climb on good trails surrounded by natural beauty. The trail passes several temples, of which I will mention two.
The first photo shows Gwaneum-sa (sa means temple), part way up the mountain. You can see from the background that it is surrounded by bamboo and that is partly what attracts birds: some species live in the bamboo itself, and others just like the diversity. The monks planted the bamboo, in most cases centuries ago, so that they can use the stems for making furniture, pipes, and other utilities. Each temple also has a plot of tea plants and a garden plot. Most are beside a stream. It is the diversity of habitats around the temples that attracts so many birds--that and the karma, I suppose. This is where I saw my first Korean subspecies of Eurasian Jay, a much brighter and more colourful version.
The next photo shows Dosoram, not a temple so much as a hermitage for a couple of monks who live there. It lies just on the upper flank of Mt. Miruk where the trail begins its steep climb to the peak. The photo is of a shrine to a monk around 1100 years ago, it is said, who was hiding from enemies and was starving and wounded and took refuge in a cave, the entrance of which can be seen to the right of the shrine. He would have died, but a tiger took pity on him and nursed hime to health.
Next is Popki-sa (or Bopgye-sa), in Chiri-san (Chiri or Jiri Mountain) National Park, which is on the mainland. It is a long, unremittingly steep climb. At 1915 meters, Cheonhwang-bong (bong means peak) is the tallest in the South Korean mainland, making Popki-sa one of the highest temples, or the highest. I've been there twice: October 2004 when the mountain was a riot of fall colours, and May 2005 when the mountain and canyons were covered with pink, red, mauve and purple rhododendrons. The hike is worth it: this is were I saw and recorded the melodious song of my first Siberian Blue Robin, and dozens of other woodland and mountain songbird species.
I first noticed the bird life around temples in Suchow, China, "the Venice of the Orient" as Marco Polo called it, in 1993. It is an ancient city a couple of hours drive from Shanghai where one gets around by sampan through innumerable canals, passing under the same stone bridges that Marco Polo himself marvelled at. For hundreds of years, the beauty of this little city on the Grand Canal made it a place for rich people to retire, and many of their elaborate, formal gardens have been preserved. The old city of Suchow is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Its diversity waterbirds is amazing: I saw a Cinnamon Bittern, three kinds of egret, herons, ducks too numerous to mention, and many others.
A few years later, Hannah and went to Qingdao on the Shandong Peninsula. The temples and monasteries, even in this bustling city of 4 million, where oases of peace and forested tranquility, though rather thinly blessed with birds, it must be admitted.
We took a ride up the coast to a Buddhist temple complex at Laoshan. Lao means old and shan means mountain, and these mountains look it: the sharp relief and wrinkled terrain pocked with granite outcrops look like the very bones of the Earth. As always, the monks at Taiqing-gong, a Taoist palace-temple complex, have a tea plantation and there were birds aplenty. Then we hiked up a mile or so to a little temple (above) carved into the rocks by a spring, with some buildings perched on stone terraces built out from the mountain. Again, a myriad of bird species greeted us.
In 2003, Hannah and I went to Japan were we visited many temples, often climbing high mountains, such as the one pictured, a temple near Gifu Castle, overlooking the city of Gifu. This is where I saw my first Blue-and-White Flycatcher.
This next two photos are of a large garden in Hanoi dedicated to Confusius and to learning. Filled with birds: laughing thrushes, babblers, and so on.
Not "best for last" but this last one is one great temple for birding: Angkor Wat. I had a birding guide who brought tea and a banana-leaf wrapped breakfast and showed me so many birds: Coppersmith Barbet, Lineated Barbet, Hill Mynah, 2 species of parakeet, Forest Wagtail, Black Baza, Cotton Pygmy-goose, Indian Roller, Common Iora, Ashy Minivet, Rufous-tailed Rock-thrush, drongos, flycatchers, Brahminy Kite, and on and on.
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