Hi Ed
Thanks for this. Do you remember viewing the cranes from a hill (White Horse Hill Memorial) overlooking the DMZ. I have spoken to Richard Klim but he was not able to help.
Roger
Since you have pressed so politely, I have had a delve into my soft memory and hard drive and here's a bit more.
An email to Nial Moores may get you a more orderly answer, but bear in mind the he is one of a very pressed small band of conservationists in South Korea, so don't be offended if you don't get the help you are hoping for.
1. I was up at Cheorwon at dawn to watch the cranes flying west to feeding grounds, out of a roost site to the north-east which I recall being told was in the DMZ (i.e. the roost itself was). I think the flypast was between 7 and 730AM and I got there with only a few minutes to spare. About 125 cranes in total, White-naped and Red-crowned. It was seriously cold there at first light: in the -10C to -20C range.
2. Yes, the location I watched from was a monument. After I walked down from it at 8ish, two soldiers with machine guns came running down the steps after me shouting, which had a momentarily laxative effect - but that was because I had left my telescope up there and they were returning it, so doesn't necessarily imply it was a restricted zone...
3. The white horse? You have googled well: I had no idea it was called that, or had completely forgotten but I took a photo as attached, to record the somewhat incongruous street furniture. So given your question, I suspect the white horse on the left is a big clue! No guarantee it is the same place though.
4. Also attached is long range pic of a party of cranes to give you a feel for things- the mountains in the background are North Korea. If you look closely you can see that it was so cold the cranes were flying with their legs tucked forward into their breast feathers, like godwits do over here in a freeze up. I've never seen cranes do that even in Hokkaido.
5. Some feeding cranes remained in the general area of the monument during the day.
6. Later on we headed closer to (but probably still not in) the DMZ for Cinereous Vultures- a monster flock of 585 on the dam of a reservoir with a light scatter of eagles (Golden, White-tailed, Steller's). We had certainly gone through checkpoints by then and there were soldiers on-hand giving instructions as to how far north we were allowed to scan when counting the vultures.
7. I have reversed googled your white horse monument clue and find
http://www.currentzoology.org/temp/{48A94FC1-00CE-4C6B-B656-9BE3BEC7B01E}.pdf as you probably have, which includes a map of sorts.
8. I've seen the odd report of bus tours to see cranes in Cheorwon into an area where buses are allowed, but private vehicles are not. [Here's one: sounds like a birder's nightmare:
http://subhojitchakz.blogspot.co.uk/2010/02/cheorwon-trip-closer-look-at-rare.html ] I'm afraid, as per my earlier reply, I simply don't know if this reflects the existence of access restrictions outside the DMZ itself- things may have changed since 2005 and not necessarily for the better.
I hope that helps- I certainly enjoyed the trip down memory lane.
