White-cheeked Starling

White-cheeked Starling (Spodiopsar cineraceus) is an East Asian starling with a grey body, dark head and breast, white cheek patch and orange bill and legs. Body shape, bill structure, plumage pattern and voice provide the strongest field characters. Age, sex and season may alter its appearance, so identification should combine several features and careful direct field comparisons with similar species in the same habitat (Wikipedia, general species account).

It frequents farmland, parks and settlements, feeding in social groups on insects, fruit and seeds and nesting in tree or building cavities; seasonal flocks are familiar across much of its range. Its movements and social behaviour vary through the year, with breeding birds generally more dispersed and non-breeding birds gathering where food is concentrated. The Korean vertebrate catalogue used for this guide records the species in South Korea (Wikipedia, general species account; Wildlife of Korea occurrence records).