The wide flats where the Taedong meets the Yellow Sea are designated an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International: an 11,500-hectare mosaic of tidal flats, salt marsh, and shallow brackish water that supports large populations of waterbirds on the East Asian–Australasian Flyway. Spoonbills, swan geese, Far Eastern curlews, and saunders's gulls have all been recorded here, with peak counts in spring and autumn migration.
Foreign visitors are rarely if ever taken specifically to look at birds in North Korea, but the estuary stretches alongside the road to the West Sea Barrage and a sharp-eyed traveller can pick out birds from the bus window. Bring binoculars; ask the guide first.