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Phone: Toll-free in USA 1-800-721-9986
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Previous
Tour Highlights
from FONT's Birding & Nature Tours
in JAPAN

In the following summaries, there are further links to LISTS of BIRDS and OTHER WILDLIFE
January/February 2009 - Winter Bird Birding: Hokkaido & Honshu
January 2008 - Winter Birding: Honshu, Hokkaido, & Kyushu
December 2007 - Late-Fall Birding: Honshu, Kyushu, & Hokkaido
May 2007 - Spring Birding: Honshu, including Hegura Island, Okinawa, Amami, Kyushu
January 2007 - Winter Birding: Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Amami
May 2006 - Spring Birding: Honshu, including Hegura Island
May 2005- Spring Birding: Honshu, including Hegura Island, Amami, Okinawa, and Kyushu
January/February 2005 - Winter Birding: Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Amami & Okinawa
December
2004 - Winter Birding: Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and
Amami
May
2004 - Spring Birding in Central Japan: Honshu, including Hegura Island
January 2004 - Winter Birding: Honshu, Hokkaido, & Kyushu
January
2003 - Winter Birding: Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and
Amami & Okinawa
May 2002 - Spring Birding in Central Japan: Honshu, including Hegura Island
May 2002 - Spring Birding in Southern Japan: Nansei Shoto (including Okinawa & Amami) and Kyushu
April
2001 - Spring Birding in Central Japan: Honshu, including Hegura Island
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General Japan Links:
Upcoming FONT Japan Birding & Nature Tours
A Cumulative List of Birds during our Tours in Japan
Rare
Birds during FONT Tours in Japan
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Japan
- Winter Birding: Hokkaido & Honshu
January/February 2009

The word in
Japanese for the Crane is "Tancho".

Links:
Birds & Other Wildlife during FONT Japan Tour in January-February 2009
The following account was written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour:
Of course, during
our winter tours in Japan, particularly in Hokkaido,
birds that are highlights are those such as the dancing and calling Red-crowned,
or Japanese, Cranes, the gatherings of Steller's and White-tailed
Eagles, the flocks of Whooper Swans, and the large & rare
Blakiston's Fish Owl.
All of those we experienced again during our Jan/Feb
2009 Japan Tour in Hokkaido. In
fact, that tour was the 20th FONT birding & nature tour in Japan during
which we've seen the Blakiston's Fish Owl. (We've never missed!)
But, during the tour, there were other birds too - a number of them, including
some not as well known outside Japan, such as the Brown-eared Bulbul and Olive-backed
Pipit, in photographs below taken during the tour. The Brown-eared Bulbul
is nearly endemic to Japan.

Brown-eared Bulbul,
photographed during the FONT
January/February 2009 Tour in Japan
(photo by Karl Frafjord, of Norway)

Olive-backed Pipit, photographed during the
FONT
January/February 2009 Tour in Japan
(photo by Karl Frafjord, of Norway)
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Japan - Winter Birding: Honshu, Hokkaido, & Kyushu
January 2008
"With Blakiston's Fish-Owl, Eagles, Cranes, Mandarins & more"
The following account was written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour:
Our 30th FONT birding & nature tour in
Japan took place January 8-21, 2008.
During that tour, again, as there have been during such tours in the past, a number of
nice birds were seen, and memorable experiences were had, as we traveled about the countryside. Those
travels were on the three main Japanese island of Honshu,
Hokkaido, and Kyushu.
Highlights were many. Foremost among them were, as always, the cranes and
the eagles on both the northern island of Hokkaido
and the southern island of Kyushu.
Many Steller's and White-tailed Eagles, and the Japanese,
or Red-crowned Cranes were enjoyed by our group on Hokkaido. On Kyushu,
we were treated to 4 species of Cranes (White-naped, Hooded, Common,
& Sandhill) and a single rare Eagle for Japan, a Greater
Spotted.
But tour highlight that was probably the best of them all was our experience on Hokkaido
with the very big & very rare Blakiston's Fish Owl.
At dusk, one day, we were where we should have been to see this owl named after
Captain Thomas Wright Blakiston. We were ready.
Mr. Blakiston was a consul and a businessman from England who went to Japan,
specifically southwest Hokkaido, in the mid-1800's, immediately after the
"opening" of Japan to foreigners. During about 20 years that he was
there, Blakiston enthusiastically pursued an interest in describing the avifauna
and the zoological features of that northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaido. In
Japan, the owl named after Blakiston, only occurs on Hokkaido, where, due to its
habits and habitat, it is very rare. Another population, also small, occurs on
mainland Asia in Siberia.
The Blakiston's Fish Owl is very large, with a wingspan of about 2 meters
(that's 6 feet). It's been said that the female is the largest of the
world's owls. As big as 71 centimeters in length, it's larger than the Eurasian
Eagle Owl. And bigger than these other large owls elsewhere in the world:
the Verreaux's Eagle Owl, of Africa, up to 65 centimeters,
the Pel's Fishing Owl, of Africa, up to 61 centimeters,
the Shelley's Eagle Owl, also of Africa, also up to 61 centimeters,
and the Tawny Fish Owl of southern Asia, up to 58 centimeters.
As noted, the huge Blakiston's Fish Owl is also very rare. In Japan (Hokkaido
only), there may be population of 100 to 120 birds. On mainland Asia, there
may just be a few hundred.
So, as I said, late that day on Hokkaido, as darkness was falling, we were ready
to see it. We had already experienced, the previous day, a flock of over a
hundred Red-crowned Cranes walking about in stately fashion on the snow.
Earlier, during the same day that we were in place to see the owl, we had seen
some magnificent Steller's Sea Eagles. That is certainly an appropriate
adjective for that huge and striking bird that comes to Hokkaido during the
winter from the Siberian wilderness to the north. And so, yes, even we had
already seen some wonderful sights, we were ready for the third part of the
Hokkaido "Avian Big 3", the owl.
As ready as we were, however, that day it was not to be. As we waited, and as
the sky got darker, a Ural Owl flew by us. And it was the only owl that
we saw that day.
Therefore, we opted to stay an extra day on Hokkaido, which was fine as that
island does offer some of the best wintertime birding anywhere. During our
additional day, we continued to have good experiences, again with Steller's
and White-tailed Eagles, and with a fine assortment of waterbirds (such
as Whooper Swans, various ducks, and gulls). The
settings in which we saw these birds added to the experience. The winter scenery
was superb.
As the day ended, we were back again at the same place where we had hoped to see
the Blakiston's Owl the previous day. Would it be different?
Even though we stuck with pretty much the same strategy, it was quite different.
All of a sudden, a big Blakiston's Owl appeared, near us, on the top of a
utility pole. Then, there was another! A pair of the owls was with us, a female
and a male (the male is large, but female is larger). We got out of our
vehicle and stood quietly outside. Both of the owls flew right above us, with
their big forms against the beautiful twilight sky. The owls, though, to us,
were more beautiful. To be by such creatures was a thrill. Like the eagles, they
were also magnificent! But, the experience was all the more outstanding, as we
had missed the bird the day before.
The owls stayed with us, as they were perched nearby on posts and
branches. We could see well their features - their feathers, their tufts, their
eyes, their talons. And we heard them too. The pair called in duet, with the
voice of one deeper than than that of the other.
We were so glad that we had opted to stay that extra day on Hokkaido.

Blakiston's Fish Owl
With our January '08 experience, the Blakiston's Fish Owl has continued
to be found during every late-fall & winter FONT Japan tour. Our record is
now 19 sightings during 19 such tours.
Seen during every FONT tour in Hokkaido, Japan,
has been the Red-crowned Crane, the second rarest of the 15 species of
the world's cranes, after the Whooping Crane of North America. Mention has
already been made that we saw over a hundred of these tour and elegant birds
during our stay in Hokkaido, as they walked about on the snow. We also observed
them as they flew and as they fed. We watched and listened as they made their
loud calls, as cranes do. We saw them occasionally dance about on the snow.
Although during winter the cranes form flocks at places where they feed, it was
apparent that in the group of birds, as we watched, that there were paired
adults and some adults still with their young birds of the year.
We had a very nice afternoon with the cranes.
A young man at the "crane interpretive center" gave us (in English)
a tremendous amount of information about the birds.
An older man, at about 2pm, wandered out on the snow among the cranes, and as
he's done for years, he threw small fish onto the ground. The cranes there also
feed on some grain, but it was apparent that they looked forward to the man's
daily walk with the fish. Prior to it, there was, among those birds, notable
anticipation (even though none of the older birds were wearing a watch, and
none of the younger birds had a mobile phone with a digital clock!).
Other birds in the area also anticipated the afternoon feeding. White-tailed
Eagles appeared, as if on cue. They swooped down to the ground, snatching up
some of the fish. Black Kites did as well. Whooper Swans, that
were on the snowy ground near the cranes, flew away when the man, with
the bucket of fish, entered the field.
The cranes, by the way, held their own, with the eagles. Both of
them, of course, are large birds, but we could see that the cranes were
not intimidated by the eagles.
No Steller's Sea Eagles came in to the afternoon spectacle of birds at
feeding time, but both adult and juvenile were seen, as they flew by.
Large-billed Crows, when seen on their own, appear large - not only their
bills being so, but overall. However, when in the company of eagles, cranes,
kites, and swans, the crows that were on the scene seemed
rather small.
It was a wonderful afternoon for us, during that day in Hokkaido, at the crane
site.
And it was particularly nice when we reflected that the beautiful creature that
we were seeing, the Japanese Crane, was at one time so very close to
extinction. Back in the 1920's, the total population of Red-crowned,
or Japanese, Cranes in Japan was only about 20 individuals, all of them
in southeastern Hokkaido. Today, in Japan, they are still only in that one part
of the country, but now the population numbers about 1,000 birds. They are
Hokkaido residents, that throughout much of the year occur mostly in marshy
places where they breed. Pairs have their sizable territories. In the winter,
they form flocks (as we saw during our tour) at a few (3 or 4)
particular places. It has been the winter-time feeding, over the years, of grain
and fish, as noted above, that has caused the increase in the population, also
just noted, during recent decades. Another significant factor has been the
removal of high tension lines in areas frequented by the cranes.
Just over 15 years ago, at the time of the first FONT tour in Hokkaido, Japan,
in 1992, the total number of Japanese, or Red-crowned, Cranes was
557. As of this year, that population has nearly doubled. In 2006, the number of
these cranes counted in Hokkaido was 1,013. When I first visited Hokkaido in
1982, and saw my first Japanese Cranes, the population was a mere 320
birds. How good it's been that the bird's numbers have increased since! And, for
me, personally, each time that I've seen them since, it's really been a thrill.
Also thrilling, during each visit to Japan, has been every encounter with cranes
in the winter at the opposite end of country, on the southerly island of
Kyushu. Again, in January 2008, we had a good day there with the
thousands of cranes that come each winter from mainland Asia. It's about
12,000 cranes that come annually. Of them, just over 10,000 are Hooded
Cranes. About 2,000 of them are White-naped Cranes. Both are nice to
see, but with their elegant appearance, the White-naped Cranes are
especially so.
During the one census conducted of the Kyushu cranes during the '07-'08 winter,
10,973 Hooded Cranes were tallied. That's up a bit - and that's good, as
nearly all the world's Hooded Cranes winter in that one portion of
Kyushu.
The tally of White-naped Cranes, during that census, was 1,019. That's a
bit down. But a few more may have come after that count done in December. A
second and third winter census was not conducted in early '08 due to bad
weather. But during the day that we were there, in January '08, the weather was
wonderful - as was our day.

During our
January '08 Japan tour, we had a good group,
with tour participants from California USA & Australia,
and we also met, as we have previously during our tours in Japan,
some nice local people along the way.
One such person is the man (in the photo above)
who feeds the Red-crowned Cranes in Hokkaido (in the photo below).

Another such
person is the man (at left, in the photo below)
who operates a restaurant in Kyushu
where the cranes are there (in the bottom photo).
FONT tour leader, Armas Hill (at right, in the photo below)
has been to that restaurant numerous times.

A group of White-naped Cranes on Kyushu.
During our time
with the cranes on Kyushu, we saw 4
species in that family. In addition to the Hooded and the White-naped,
we saw a Common Crane and 2 Sandhill Cranes. Every year, during
the decade and a half that we've been seeing cranes on Kyushu, a few stragglers
of these two species have been present. Both species come with the Hooded
and White-naped Cranes from mainland Asia.
The Common Crane breeds at various places across the wide land expanse of
Eurasia. There are two subspecies, basically one westerly, in Europe, and
another further east, in eastern Asia. The second of these is the subspecies
that occurs in Japan. It was described as a subspecies in 1894, over a hundred
years after the nominate, or western, race was described by Linneaus in Sweden,
when the modern-day system of avian classification began in 1758.
The Sandhill Crane is thought of as a North American bird, and that it
is, but a fairly sizable do nest each year in Asia, in eastern Siberia. Nearly
all of those birds, after breeding, fly eastward to North America. Actually, in
general, those that nest the furthest west in Eurasia migrate the furthest south
in North America, even as far south as Mexico. Every year, however, a couple Sandhill
Cranes come south to Japan to spend their winter - not quite as
"outcasts", but usually toward the edge of the large crane flocks.
The Japanese name for the Sandhill Crane is "Kanada-zuru".
"Zuru" is a word for
"crane". Of course, Sandhill Cranes are quite numerous in Canada,
during their nesting season. However, those Sandhill Cranes seen about annually
in Japan have most likely never been in that North American country. Two
Sandhill Cranes were present with the other cranes in Kyushu in January 2008. We
saw both. They were not together.
Not in Kyushu, Japan, during the winter of '07-'08, were either the rare Siberian
Crane or the Demoiselle Crane. Both have occurred, and have been seen
during FONT tours, in recent years. But so not this time.
After we enjoyed most of a day with the masses of cranes on Kyushu, we
traveled a few kilometers south with the intention of seeing a rarity in Japan,
a Greater Spotted Eagle. We had learned, at lunch, from the man in the
photo above, at the restaurant, that a single bird was present there again,
having been seen just a day or two earlier. From him, we got directions, and
even though we didn't have much time, we were on our way.
The plan was to drive the 40 or so kilometers to the appropriate place and,
during a short allocation of time, see the bird.
The Greater Spotted Eagle is a globally threatened species, classified as
"vulnerable" by the Birdlife International. Its range is vast, across
Eurasia, but there are not many birds. A recent estimate is of less than 10,000
adults. The breeding range is large, but highly fragmented. The species winters
in over 30 countries, and occurs as a vagrant in another 20 countries, including
Japan. The single, wintering bird which we sought in Kyushu may well have been
the only Greater Spotted Eagle existing in Japan when we saw it!
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Yes, we did see the eagle. After the
drive, we were nearly sure that we were at the right place, but we wanted, as
the afternoon was waning, to be absolutely sure. So we stopped at the post
office, in the little town, to ask (bearing in mind, of course, that I speak
mostly English, and the postal employees there speak mostly Japanese). But
it was "no problem", as "they say", in that regard. When I
inquired, with a bird book and body language, they immediately said "Washi",
the Japanese word for eagle. All of the postal employees knew about the
bird.
As I was in the post office, a car pulled up next to our vehicle in the parking
lot. The people in the car also knew about the "Washi",
and they told us to follow them to the proper spot to observe it. And that we
did, and then within seconds, we saw the large bird, soaring about in the sky
above a wooded ridge.
Actually, some of our group, had already spotted it from the post office parking
lot, but from there it was further away. Thus, the Greater Spotted Eagle
was just that - "spotted" - and it was one that was
"greater" as well, as we only had but a few minutes. Being late in the
afternoon, after 3:30, with the thermals over the hills disappearing, it was
good fortune to have the fine look that we did of the rare raptor for about 10
minutes, as flew about in the sky.
During two previous FONT tours, we had seen the Greater Spotted Eagle,
actually at the same place. But that was back in the 1990's. Yes, the place was
the same, but was it the same individual bird? For a few years, it's been said
that a single bird has wintered there. But how long does it live? In a nice new
Japanese bird book (in English), there are photos of the Greater
Spotted Eagle, both adult and immature birds, and both said to have been
photographed at the place where we were in Kyushu.
Our quick visit was fun - to the little town where "everyone" knew of
the eagle from Asia that comes each winter to the nearby hills. Again, it's
known there as the "Washi". The
complete Japanese name of the bird is "Karafuto-washi".
That of the White-tailed Eagle that we saw well in good number on Hokkaido
is "Ojiro-washi". That of the Steller's
Sea Eagle, that was so great for us to see on Hokkaido as we did, is "O-washi".
I think that's because whenever one sees that species well, one can't help
but utter "O" something - usually "Oh, my!"
"O-washi" is a great name for a
great bird. Steller's Sea Eagles are magnificent and impressive creatures
to watch. Not only are they very big, and with a striking plumage, and with a
huge yellow bill, they are truly symbols of the wild north. All of those that
come to Hokkaido in Japan in the winter are from a rather restricted area of
eastern Siberia, where they breed. Overall, the species is not common, as its
estimated total population is said to be only about 5,000 birds and declining.
It was nice during our January '08 tour, to see 3 species of eagles, or
"Washi"s, once again, as we
did in Japan twice before, back in the last decade, when we also then saw the Greater
Spotted.
(A note: During the FONT tour in Japan, just prior to Jan '08, in Dec 2007, we
were fortunate to see 3 "big raptors" all on Hokkaido: the 2 Eagles,
the White-tailed and the Steller's, and another large perched bird
- a Mountain Hawk-Eagle.
The female that we saw, of the latter, was big. Females are
about 20 per cent larger than males. And the Japanese race is about 10 per cent
larger than the race on mainland Asia.
The length of the female Mountain
Hawk-Eagle, in the same genus as the Ornate Hawk-Eagle in Latin
America. is as much as 84 centimeters. That of the female White-tailed Eagle
is 92 centimeters. That of the Steller's Sea Eagle is up to 105
centimeters. The length of the Greater Spotted Eagle, by the way, is as
much as 71 centimeters.)

A Steller's Sea Eagle, out on the ice, in Hokkaido
Many of the birds
already noted in this narrative have been the "big ones", such as the eagles,
cranes, and the owl. But during our January '08 Japan Tour, more of
the smaller birds were seen than usual during on time on the northern island of Hokkaido.
Generally, not many such nor many individuals are seen there in the winter,
particularly away from the coast. But in the "Passerine
Department", aside from the Corvids (the 2 species of crows,
the Raven, and the Eurasian Jay), we encountered
over 20 species of smaller birds as we traveled about Hokkaido.
Notable among them were some flocks of Bohemian Waxwings, along with more
Dusky Thrushes than usual, Asian Rosy Finches (at a few
places), and a large flock of Common Redpolls, with about 200 of them
in that one flock in some bushes and trees at the edge of a large farm
field.
Also notable, and unexpected, was a single Eurasian Skylark with that
flock of Redpolls. It was first Eurasian Skylark ever for us in
the winter in Hokkaido. We assume that one bird came from further north, in
Siberia, and that it was not a bird of the Japanese race.
Also, among the smaller birds for us in Hokkaido, was a single White Wagtail
at a river mouth along the coast, and a flock or two of Grey-capped
Greenfinches ( a bit unusual) on a coastal barrier island, where also, by
some homes, there was a single Rustic Bunting. The Rustic Bunting,
by the way, during our tour was therefore one of handful of birds seen on all
three of the islands that we visited: Honshu, Kyushu, and Hokkaido. That's
happened for us before with that species, but it's unusual.
Also in the small-bird category, the Brown Dippers that we saw on
Hokkaido were expected, as were the various Tits: the Great, Marsh,
and Varied, along with the Eurasian Nuthatch (a pale race on
Hokkaido), and the Brown-eared Bulbul. The last of these (like the
Rustic Bunting) was seen during our tour on "all 3
islands" as were the Dusky Thrush and Eurasian Tree Sparrow.
But that's to be expected.
In the woods, not really unexpected, but nice to see, were a number of Hawfinches
and Bramblings.
Hokkaido is a good place for woodpeckers. It's the only island in Japan
with the Grey-headed Woodpecker that we saw. Also seen were the Great
Spotted Woodpecker and the Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker. The Black
Woodpecker (only in Japan on Hokkaido) was heard.
Japan, in the winter, is a wonderful place for waterbirds, one of the
best anywhere in the world. About 30 species of waterfowl winter in
Japan, totaling several million birds. During our January '08 tour, we saw most
of the species, and, indeed, many individuals.
Reference has already been made here to the winter-time feeding of the cranes
in Hokkaido, with some other bird species also partaking in the banquet. Such
feeding of birds has, for years, been a rather characteristic Japanese feature,
and continues so today.
On the main Japanese island of Honshu, at
the beginning of our tour, we visited a small pond in the countryside that in
the winter is filled with waterfowl, mostly ducks, but also some Whooper
Swans. During previous FONT tours, we had seen a few Baikal Teal there,
but there was no such good luck for us there this time. Years ago, the Baikal
Teal was a common winter visitor in Japan. During recent decades, however,
that species has drastically declined in Japan, with it now being in just a few
favored areas.
At the small pond, however, we did have the good fortune to see closely some Falcated
Ducks, another species of waterfowl with the drake being a beautiful
creature.
The feeding of birds just alluded to a moment ago takes place at that pond every
afternoon. The feeding-time is 3pm, and, at that time, we were there. When those
who throw the grain onto the water do so, there was bedlam among the birds,
including not only noisy swans, but an assortment of ducks. In
addition to the Falcated Ducks, there were many Northern Pintails
and Eurasian Wigeon, along with some Tufted Ducks and Common
Pochards. There were some other species too, and 3 drakes that appeared to
be American-Eurasian Wigeon hybrids.
Some of this mass of ducks were so enthusiastic about eating, that they
literally, and quickly, flew around us and other people at the edge of the pond
in their fervor.
And it's interesting that these are really wild ducks - having come from
places to the north, mostly in Siberia, that are truly quite wild, and where
there are very few people. During most of their year, they probably encounter
nearly no humans, and when they do, in Japan in the winter, they are people who
feed them - every day at 3pm.
Another thing interesting, that we couldn't help but notice there at the pond,
when the birds were being fed, was that the large number of Mallards
there kept their distance, out on the water. They did not join in the feeding
frenzy. Those Mallards appeared to be more "on the wild side" than
many seen at other places in the world.
Further north, on colder Hokkaido, there
were other places where we visited that bird-feeding was a daily activity.
On a large lake, away from the coast, there were dozens of Whooper Swans.
As just noted, Hokkaido is colder than Honshu, but it (Hokkaido that is)
can be even colder than it was for us in January '08.
It was a beautiful day for us at that lake with the Whooper Swans, with a blue
sky, and nearly no ice. The lake can be (and has been for us during other tours)
nearly completely frozen.
Famous photographs of the Whooper Swans on open water, in the mist, and with the
snow, have been taken at that lake. Those hearty swans are only there in the
winter. Their nesting grounds are in Siberia, as are those of so many of the
birds that we see in Japan during our winter tours.
When the swans at the lake are fed, they call. And they call loudly. I guess,
more aptly, they "whoop", as, after all, they are "Whoopers".
When I hear them, I wonder (as odd it may be to do so) how it is that the
swans of Eurasia are called "Whooper", while the cranes in North
America, that give their loud call, are called "Whooping".

Whooper Swans
At another
bird-feeding spot in Hokkaido that we visited along the eastern seacoast, there
were also Whooper Swans, also loudly calling, and a number of ducks.
The composition of the waterfowl was different than what there was at the small
pond on Honshu. At the Hokkaido spot, there were, in closely, Common
Goldeneye and Greater Scaup, in addition to Northern
Pintails and Mallards.
The spot for popular for parents, bundled in clothing, to bring their children,
smaller people also bundled in clothing, on a holiday, actually "Children's
Day". As the bird-feeding was going on (it seemed continuous at
this cold Hokkaido location), there was constant commotion among the birds.
In addition to the swans and the ducks, there were Gulls,
with Glaucous, Slaty-backed, and Vegas close at hand. I couldn't
help but think of how in North America, birders would travel to get a look, even
at a distance, of these birds, and that there, at this birdy Hokkaido spot, we
could nearly touch them.
Nearby, on branches in some bare trees (and not within touching-distance), there
were some White-tailed Eagles. Again, for us, we were at quite a place.
Some species of ducks just don't come in to the feeding - ever. Along
that eastern coast of Hokkaido, always in the surf, there were Harlequin
Ducks. Really no species of waterfowl is as boldly and colorfully patterned
as the male Harlequin, That day, we saw many - scores of them.
Beyond the surf, we saw numerous scoters. Most were American Scoters,
with the males having an all-black plumage, and an orange bill. Some were White-winged
Scoters. It's interesting that while most of the Japanese waterfowl are
of the Eurasian ilk, the two species of scoters are, instead, those of
North America. The White-winged Scoter is a regional subspecies of the North
American bird, called the "Stejneger's White-winged Scoter",
named after one of the first western ornithologists to study Japanese birds,
back in the nineteenth century.
Like the Harlequins and the Scoters, the Mergansers never
come in to where the people feed the birds. Along the eastern Hokkaido coast,
there were both Common and Red-breasted Mergansers.
At a particular place I knew to be good for another merganser, the Smew,
we saw a pair. But it took some doing. The river where I've seen them in the
past was frozen solid, all the way to the ocean. But nearby on the ocean itself,
in the surf, the bright, mostly white, with some black, male was seen riding the
waves with the red-capped female by his side. The pair was among a group other
mergansers. When a White-tailed Eagle flew by in the sky above, the two Smews
were the first ducks to fly away.
Many of the waterfowl species during our tour have now been noted. But a
couple more notable species remain to be mentioned, one on Hokkaido, and one on
Kyushu.
Probably the most exquisite of all the ducks we saw was the Long-tailed
Duck. At a Hokkaido harbor, and with beautiful afternoon light shining upon
it, a male Long-tailed Duck, close to us on still water, was superb. Even though
there were so many extraordinary sightings during the tour, it was thought, at
the time, that this was one of the best. What a brilliantly beautiful bird it
was!
The late afternoon light in that part of Hokkaido was truly wonderful. It's a
place on this Earth where the air is really so clean, being as far as it is from
any pollution. And so, in that cold and clear environment, the features of the sky,
both by day and night, can be vivid. In between, at twilight, the colors
above us and around us were marvelous.
On the southernmost Japanese island that we visited, Kyushu,
there was the other notable species of waterfowl of our tour. Along a
particular river there, we saw, and yes - we enjoyed seeing, the Mandarin
Ducks. All of the adjectives that have already been used in this narrative,
in relation to waterfowl, can be used again pertaining to the Mandarin:
"brilliantly beautiful; boldly and colorfully patterned; and
exquisite".
"Mandarin", itself, is from the Sanskrit word
"mantrin", meaning "counselor".
In the mid-1500's, that word was applied to Chinese officials, as a term used by
foreigners to describe the handsomely attired senior officers of the Chinese
government.
The duck, itself, is truly of the "Far East". Its native range
is only in easternmost Asia: in not just China, but further north, breeding in
the Russian Ussurland and Kuril Islands, and in northern Japan.
The Mandarin Duck has been known as the "pearl of
Manchuria". In Russia, it's known as "Manadarinka".
It's called "Yuen Yang" in
Chinese, while in Japanese it's called "Oshidori".
In Japanese art, as early as the 8th Century, the Mandarins were depicted, as
they have been since on screen paintings, showing faithful males and females
together.
While the Japanese, or Red-crowned, Crane in Japan symbolizes
happiness and longevity, the Mandarin in Japan represents the enduring
qualities of loyalty and fidelity. The Mandarin drake and hen have been believed
to be strongly monogamous.

A Mandarin drake & hen
In China, nowadays, very few Mandarin Ducks are to be found in the
winter. But, that's not the case in southern Japan, and particularly on Kyushu.
A few years ago I found that during the winter along the particular river,
referred to above, in southeastern Kyushu, there were a least a few thousand Mandarin
Ducks, along the upper reaches of that river in the wooded hills. The
species was the prevalent, and, at some places, the only species of duck along
that stretch of the river. And I found that those Mandarin Ducks were about as
"wild" as ducks could be. The small groups of ducks, along that river,
would immediately fly away, as people got out of a vehicle, on the road at a
long distance from the ducks that were either swimming on the river or tucked on
and under the branches by its edge. It happened every time, and the birds give
would their distinctive calls as they flew.
These were not birds such as those in city parks. We used to visit the Mejii
Shrine in Tokyo to see the Mandarins
there at a pond in the park. But seeing the "wilder Mandarins", in
large numbers, along the Kyushu river, has
been so much more of an experience.
Those ducks in Kyushu may come each winter from the wilder areas of mainland
Asia - in Ussurland, or from those northerly Kuril Islands. Or, maybe, they come
from northern Japan. Wherever, they come from, there are many.
A census of Mandarin Ducks wintering in Japan in 1992 tallied a total of
about 20,000 birds. The figures from that annual census in 1995 give the number
of wintering Mandarins in the Miyazaki Prefecture of Kyushu as 796 birds.
The Kyushu river we've visited for the Mandarins is in that Miyazaki Prefecture. (A
Japanese prefecture is rather like a US state.)
But the 800 or so birds just
given for the entire prefecture must be a low figure, as along that one river,
during one afternoon, during one of our tours, we counted about 3,000 Mandarin
Ducks - and that was without doing, in any way, what would be a proper census.
It was wonderful to see Mandarin Ducks, along that Kyushu river, again,
during our January 2008 tour! We didn't tally as many as 3,000, but we saw quite
a few. Due to some construction along the riverside road, that would have caused
us a significant delay, we didn't go as far upriver as we normally have.
Downriver, along that river in southeastern Kyushu. however, we saw, during our
January 2008 tour, some other wonderful birds. Near where the river flows into
the Pacific Ocean, there were both Black-faced and Eurasian Spoonbills.
The combined flock, with both species, was about 10 birds. Both Spoonbills
occur in Japan only in the winter. The Black-faced Spoonbill is one of
the rarest birds in the world, with a total estimated population of about 700
individuals.
A bird rare for Japan was also seen during our January 2008 tour by the mouth of
that Kyushu river. A single Pied Avocet was there, and with it, there was
a single Black-winged Stilt. Both the Avocet and the Stilt
were "new birds" for FONT for Kyushu, being numbers #196 & #197
for us for that island.
That was how we ended our tour. At the beginning of it, back on the main
Japanese island of Honshu, we birded one day
along another river. That day was a good one for us, there, for raptors.
We saw a nice number of Harriers, of 2 species: the Eastern Marsh,
and the Northern.
They were in addition to numbers of Osprey, Black
Kites, a Peregrine Falcon, Common Buzzards (the endemic Japanese
subspecies, japonicus), and a single hovering Rough-legged Buzzard
(as it's been known in the Old World). The Rough-legged Hawk (as
it's been known in the New World) was a "new bird" for FONT for
Honshu, #302 for us for that island.
Near where that river in Honshu flows into the Pacific Ocean, a small Japanese
city is a major fishing port. And during the winter, by where the fishing boats
dock riverside, there are huge numbers of gulls. We could get close to
them there, as, in addition to being on the water, on long concrete walls, and
in the air, the gulls were near us on boats, the payment, and rooftops. We saw,
during our afternoon there, 7 species of Gulls in an variety of plumages:
Vega, Black-tailed, Common Black-headed, Common (or Mew),
Slaty-backed, Glaucous, and Glaucous-winged. Perhaps the most
interesting observation was of a group of about 20 Common Gulls (of
the "Kamchatka race") in a tight flock, as they
floated in the air just above the river (so low to the water in fact that
their dangling feet were touching it). When doing so, the birds dipped their
bills into the water as they fed apparently on very small fish. The gulls
appeared, in unison, to be walking on the water much as storm-petrels appear to
do.
Not storm-petrels, but some gulls were seen during our pelagic trip
onboard a large ferry-boat from Honshu to Hokkaido. It was an overnight
trip, continuing as we traveled north on the Pacific Ocean during much of the
next day. We've done such a trip many times, often seeing numerous seabirds, but
unfortunately this time, there were not many birds. The boat itself was fine,
and it really was nice experience to ride on the ocean toward Hokkaido.
But, just a few gulls of various species were to be seen, along with the most
pelagic of gulls, the Black-legged Kittiwake. We saw a couple hundred of
them. The previous month, during our December '07 tour, from the ferry we saw
some Laysan Albatrosses. Not so, for us, in January '08.
The previous year, in January '07, from
the ferry we saw numerous alcids: murres, murrelets, auklets, guillemots, and
the like. Again, it was not so, for us. In fact, in January '08, not a single alcid was to be
seen, even though we looked and looked.
But we were able to look ahead - to our good birding, that we certainly were to
have, on the island of Hokkaido, with the cranes,
eagles, and the owl.
It was on Hokkaido where we saw the 4 mammals of the tour: the Red Fox, Red
Squirrel, Sika Deer, and the Harbor Seal.
For sure, it wasn't
just the birds and the mammals, told of here, that made our January '08 the good
tour that it was. The tour was also as enjoyable and interesting as it was due
to our contact with the Japanese people and their culture.
At night, we either slept on a bed, or on a tatami,
a mat on the floor.
In our hotels, we could wear a robe known as a yukata.
When we bathed, we used the O-furo, or
"hot bath".
Our traditional Japanese towel was known as a tenugi.
At meals, we ate either with western utensils, or with O'hashi,
chopsticks.
Sometimes we had our meals at a general-menu restaurant, known as a shokudo,
with either Japanese or Western style dishes. Japanese food included various
noodles, and those of us who wished to do so had raw fish and other fresh
seafoods.
Other Japanese food included:
tempura (seafood and vegetables dipped in
a batter, and deep-fried in vegetable oil),
yakitori (chunks of chicken and onion
charcoal broiled on skewers and dipped in sauce),
tonkatsu (pork or other meat, breaded and
deep-fried)
katsudon (cutlet with egg over rice in a
bowl)
kamameshi (steamed rice in fish bouillon, seasoned with soy sauce,
and laced with some bits of chicken, beef, or pork, and mushrooms, bamboo
shoots, peas).
Bowls of rice were topped with such things as pork, beef stew, curry-flavored
stew, and eggs were cooked with a slice of chicken, onions, and other vegetable
tidbits.
Among the specialties we ate there were: Sweet potatoes, rice crackers (senbei),
and chicken on a stick (yaki tori).
And of course, there was tofu and tea (green tea, that is).
And, lastly, it was how we traveled, on "back roads" into the towns,
villages, and in the countryside, more often than not away from the cities, that
made the tour for our group, very much the all-encompassing experience that it
was.
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Japan - Late-Fall
Birding: Honshu, Kyushu, & Hokkaido
December 2007
The following account was written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour:
It all began for me at the airport in Philadelphia in the US. I was there,
early, awaiting my flight to Chicago to connect to a non-stop flight to Japan
that could go west over Canada, Alaska, and the Pacific.
At the last moment, the word came that there was a mechanical problem with the
plane and that flight was cancelled. Those who were to connect to go to the
Orient were directed to taxis to JFK Airport in New York, but without enough
time to get there. No one, scheduled for the cancelled flight, would get to
Japan less than a day late. Except me.
Rather than join the ill-fated venture to New York, I convinced the airline
personnel to allow me to take a flight a few hours later in the opposite
direction to Europe - to Frankfurt, Germany - and then continue on another
flight, across mostly Russia, to Japan. Doing so, I arrived to meet our tour
members, in Kyushu, Japan, just under 2 hours later than originally scheduled.
Those people, who became "our group" went to Kyushu from places such
as California, Okinawa, and Thailand.
There have been FONT tour participants in Japan, over the years, from a number
of countries throughout the world including: England, Scotland, the island
of Jersey, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, South Africa, and
Australia, in addition to Canada and the United States. Thailand, this time, was
yet another country to be added to that list.
This tour, conducted December 10-18, 2007,
was the 29th FONT birding & nature tour in Japan.
18 of those tours have been in the late-fall and winter. 11 have been in the
spring.
As I was flying east, for hours across Russia, I couldn't help but think of how
vast that land is - huge, actually, Eurasia, continuing further east, over
Siberia. In days gone by, it took a very long time for the early explorers and
scientists to get from places in Europe such as Germany, England, France, and
western Russia, to the frontier of eastern Eurasia and beyond. In the 1700s, for
people such as Steller, Pallas, and Bering, it was a lengthy trip indeed. What I
did in hours, took them months.
I looked out the window of the plane and down upon eastern Siberia and then the
rugged, cliffy coast of the Pacific north of Korea and Manchuria. I was looking
down on a part of the world that's still a wilderness, with Siberian Tigers,
rare Scaly-sided Mergansers, and the mainland Asian populations of Blakiston
Fish-Owls and Red-crowned Cranes. And many other birds, too, occur in
that region that we (our group from places as far away as the US and
Thailand) were to see in Japan.
Such birds, in that category, avian travelers from Siberia to Japan, were to
include: Steller's Sea Eagles (named after the George Steller just
referred to), White-tailed Eagles, Whooper Swans, various ducks,
Rough-legged Hawks, White-naped Cranes, and Hooded Cranes, among the
larger birds, and others, smaller, such as the Daurian Redstart,
Yellow-throated Bunting, Northern Lapwing, and Rook, that only winter
in Japan.
The mainland Asian populations of the Blakiston's Fish Owl and the Red-crowned
Crane, noted a moment ago, never mix with those now isolated on the northern
Japanese island of Hokkaido. During our Dec '07 Japan tour, we saw both of those
species.
The Red-crowned Crane is always great to see - tall and stately. There
are now about 1,000 of them that are residents in Hokkaido - the only place
where the species normally occurs in Japan. Even just 30 years ago, there were
considerably less. That species was determined by votes, at the end of our tour,
to be our favorite bird (the list of "top birds" is below).
The massive Blakiston's Fish Owl in Hokkaido
(also only there in Japan) is not only very big; it's very rare. We saw
it - again. I say "again" as we've seen that spectacular species
during ALL of our 18 late-fall and winter tours in Japan. The rivers in Hokkaido
where the owl occurs were not yet frozen when we were there, this time, in
December. So, we were fortunate to have the good look at the big owl that we
did, one day at dusk.
A number of the birds already mentioned are among the "top
birds" of this tour, as voted by the participants at the end of it. Here's
the list of those "top birds":
#1 - RED-CROWNED CRANE
2 - Steller's Sea Eagle
3 - White-naped Crane
4 - Mandarin Duck
5 - Blakiston's Fish-Owl
6 - Smew
7 - Black-faced (& Eurasian) Spoonbills
8 - Green Pheasant
9 - Harlequin Duck
10 - Mountain Hawk-Eagle
11 - Laysan Albatross
12 - Hooded Crane
13 - wagtails (3 species)
14 - Black Kite
15 - Common Kingfisher
16 - Great Spotted Woodpecker
17 - Daurian Redstart
18 - Meadow Bunting
19 - Rook
20 - Eurasian Wigeon
21 - Pygmy Woodpecker
All of the birds receiving Number #1 votes (except one) were cranes,
with the Red-crowned Crane receiving 3 and the White-naped and Hooded
Cranes receiving one each. The single exception was the Steller's Sea
Eagle that sat so cooperatively, not far from us, atop a pole. Many times,
such eagles don't allow close approach, but the one just referred to was
so reluctant to leave its favored perch, as we stood nearby photographing the
bird, talking among ourselves, and even moving about. We had to conclude that
where that bird came from in Siberia there simply were not many people.
Another raptor that was seen perched in a big tree in Hokkaido was
unexpected. It was the Mountain Hawk-Eagle. The subspecies that's
resident in Japan, Spizaetus nipalensis orientalis, is larger than
others that occur in mainland Asia, in southern China and west into the
Himalayas. The bird that we spotted as we were traveling through hills in
southern Hokkaido was big. It was unexpected because we've never seen it
previously in Hokkaido. It has relatively recently been found to nest there. We
have seen the species during previous FONT Japan tours in the mountains and
hills of Honshu and Kyushu. Southern Hokkaido is the easternmost edge of the
bird's extensive range.
Another raptor that was good for us to see on Hokkaido was the Roughleg.
Now, that name is a compromise. In Eurasia, it's been called the Rough-legged
Buzzard. In North America, it's been known as the Rough-legged Hawk.
With whatever name, we saw a couple of them along the coast, hovering in the
air. One was doing so right above us. It was a nice sight with the backdrop of a
blue sky. Roughlegs in Hokkaido come from either the Kamchatka Peninsula
or further north in Siberia, from the tundra.
Among other birds that come to Japan from Siberia to spend the winter, Whooper
Swans are particularly notable (and hard to miss). On Hokkaido, we
saw them at a number of lakes and inlets. But they are always fun to see, and to
hear. They can be noisy. Hence their name. In that regard, someone during our
tour asked "Why is one a Whooping Crane, and another the "Whooper
Swan?" That's a good question.
Some of the other species of waterfowl during our tour were wonderful birds.
Among them, the Smews that we saw were very nice. The male, with its
distinctive white and black plumage, is truly striking. The red-headed female is
dapper. All in our group were glad to see the Smews as well as we did. One
person was particularly so, as she said that she's seen the word for years in
crossword puzzles. Now, at last, she saw the bird.
Smews come to Japan in the winter from Siberia. They don't nest in Japan.
But Harlequin Ducks do. They occur commonly along the Hokkaido coast. No
matter how common, they're always a treat to see. The male is downright gaudy.
The Falcated Duck is another attractive duck that we saw in Hokkaido. Long-tailed
Ducks, there, along the coastline are also dazzlers.
Scoters, that breed further north in Siberia, were in numbers for us
along the Hokkaido coast. We saw two kinds. The "Black Scoter"
in Japan is actually the American Scoter, now split from the Black
Scoter that occurs further west in Eurasia. The "Steininger's"
White-winged Scoter that we saw is a subspecies of the White-winged
Scoter of North America, rather than the Velvet Scoter of
more-westerly Eurasia.
But maybe no species of waterfowl more exemplifies the Orient than the Mandarin
Duck. It's similar to the Wood Duck of North America, but with a
different coloration. A few years ago, we found during a FONT tour in southern
Kyushu (the southernmost main Japanese island), a river that in the
winter (only) is filled with them. Shy, these wild Mandarins are.
They fly away quickly, calling as they go. These birds, that winter in southern
Kyushu, breed either further north in Japan, or across the sea in mainland Asia,
in places such as Korea and Manchuria. Again for us, in December '07, we saw
hundreds of them. It was quite an experience.
Every winter, thousands of cranes come to southwestern Kyushu from
mainland Asia. Mostly, they are of 2 species: the Hooded Crane and the White-naped
Crane. Not to slight the Hooded, but a comment must be made that the White-naped
Crane is really a most attractive bird.
Both of these cranes are, during the summer, spread out in the land that was
below me when I was in the plane, on my way to Japan from Germany, over eastern
Asia. They nest in Russia and Manchuria (and elsewhere in northern China).
Like me, they fly to Japan. These cranes come to Kyushu, in southern
Japan, by the thousands, arriving mostly in November and departing in February.
In mainland Asia, as noted, they range across a rather large area, but in Japan,
when they visit for the winter, they're restricted to just a few square
kilometers.
We learned, during our December '07 tour, that a couple weeks earlier, the first
count for the season of the cranes in that part of Kyushu was: 10,973
Hooded Cranes, 1,059 White-naped Cranes, 2 Sandhill Cranes, 3 Common Cranes,
and 3 hybrids (between Hooded & Common Cranes).
It's quite a sight to see those cranes at Kyushu. The Hooded Cranes there
are nearly the entire global population of the species. As to the White-naped
Crane, a recent total population estimate was about 5,000 birds. Lately,
about half have been wintering where we were in Kyushu.
We also saw, during our Dec '07 tour, one of the 2 Sandhill Cranes in the
area. The Sandhill Crane is mostly North American, but actually it's also
a breeder in northeastern Siberia. Most of those birds, after nesting, migrate
east to Alaska and then south into North Carolina. But not all. As noted, 2
arrived in Japan in '07 to winter. The species has been an annual there in
recent years.
Another bird that we saw on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu that came
from mainland Asia for the winter was the rare Black-faced Spoonbill. The
global population of that bird of eastern Asia only totals about 700 birds. It
does not breed in Japan. The species nests mostly in Korea, with a few doing so
in coastal China. We saw, in December '07, seven of these birds along with
almost as many Eurasian Spoonbills on a mudflat by the mouth of the river
where, upstream, we saw the hundreds of Mandarin Ducks. The Eurasian
Spoonbill is a winter visitor (a non-breeder) in Japan, occurring in
small numbers.
In an area of Tokyo, near the head of the Tokyo
Bay, we stopped by one afternoon to see the shorebirds. They
were there. Most were Dunlin. Also, in addition to 3 species of
plovers, there were a couple Eurasian Curlews and a small grouping of
Black-winged Stilts. Also stopping by that afternoon to visit the
shorebirds was a Peregrine Falcon that rapidly stooped in causing the
shorebirds to quickly take into the air, flying fast in one direction and then
the other in tight formation. Watching a flock fly like that is always amazing.
A part of our December 2007 Japan tour was offshore, onboard a large ferry from central
Honshu (the main Japanese island) north to Hokkaido.
The ferry-ride was overnight, and then all-day. It's good that the ferry is
large as, at times, the ocean was a bit rough. But during nearly all of the
daytime portion of the trip, there were birds in view. By far, the most were Black-legged
Kittiwakes. We saw thousands of them. It was easy to become very respectful
of that bird as we watched them continually about fly in the strong winds. Of
the two Kittiwakes in the world, the Black-legged is by far the
most common. The other, the Red-legged Kittiwake, is rather rare, and
generally a bird of the more-northerly Bering Sea. "The book" says
that the Red-legged Kittiwake can occur in the offshore waters of Japan.
Maybe so, but we never saw one (that we know of) among maybe 25,000
Black-legged Kittiwakes we saw that day at sea.
What we did see in nice numbers were Laysan Albatosses - at least 75 or
so. It was fun to watch them in their arcing flight. Other seabirds we
saw from the ferry, that December day (Dec 13, 2007) were: some Pomarine
Skuas, both Streaked and Short-tailed Shearwaters, and both Fork-tailed
and Sooty Storm-Petrels. With the storm-petrels, a Pterodroma
quickly appeared - a Bonin Petrel. Then it quickly disappeared.
Gulls (other than the kittiwakes) were in lesser
numbers than during our January trips, and alcids were considerably less,
although some Japanese Murrelets were seen - "umisuzumes",
in Japanese meaning "sea sparrows".
In an area of the ocean where there were many birds above the surface of the
water, and apparently many fish below, there were Northern Fur Seals at
the surface of the water busily catching the fish.
Mammals that were seen on land, during the tour, included: Sika Deer,
Japanese Marten, Japanese Hare, and Eurasian Wild Boar in Kyushu,
and Sika Deer and Red Fox in Hokkaido.
Not just were there birds and animals to be seen, enjoyed, and appreciated
during our December 2007 tour in Japan. There was also the beautiful Japanese
countryside, the culture, and cuisine, in addition to the Japanese
accommodations with the "onsens" (Japanese baths), and the
hospitality of our hosts at the various places where we were. And, of course,
there was our group of travelers from far-flung places such as Thailand and
California. Combined, all of these elements made our tour, simply put, a
wonderful experience.
At the end of it all, I boarded a plane in Japan to continue the journey
completely around-the-world by air, that was done in conjunction with this tour,
flying to Dallas, Texas, and then back to Philadelphia and home.
In notes following our DECEMBER 2007 birding
& nature tour in JAPAN:
"Thanks for a great
trip. I hope to see you on one of your tours soon."
Dorothy Kakimoto
Alameda, California
"Thank you for a wonderful trip."
Alice Kakimoto
Garden Grove, California
"Dear Armas,
You are so much fun to travel with --- .
You are a good driver (on the left-side of the road in Japan), and a great
bird-spotter.
Thank you for a safe, amazing trip in Kyushu & Hokkaido on roads less
traveled.
I loved every moment.
What a great trip. Thank you."
Mitsu Wasano
San Jose, California
"Thank you so much for the tour - for the adventure, and the birds".
Somporn Pmasuk & Opapunn Sriyakorn,
Bangkok, Thailand
"In my list (at the end of the tour) of "top-birds", I chose
those I did because I can now identify them by myself. Thanks for
everything!"
Somporn Pmasuk
Bangkok, Thailand
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JAPAN SPRING
BIRDING TOUR (to
Honshu, including Hegura Island)
May 2007
Links:
List of Birds & Other Wildlife during our Japan Spring Tour in '07
Cumulative List of Birds during our Japan Spring Birding Tours
The following account was written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour:
May is a wonderful month, almost anywhere in
the Northern Hemisphere. It's spring at its best, and, many places, birding at
its best as well.
And some of the best birding, it's fair to say, anywhere on Earth in the spring,
is on one very small island in the Sea of Japan, called Hegura.
During the spring of 2007, FONT conducted its 6th tour on Hegura Island, as part
of our annual spring birding & nature tour in Japan. The tour, which took
place May 6-20, 2007, was the 28th FONT tour
in Japan, and our 11th there in the spring. During the tour, we visited 5
Japanese islands.
Two of those islands were the major islands of Honshu
and Kyushu. We also went to the
more-southerly islands of Okinawa and Amami.
But, the other island we visited was the small one, referred to here in the
first paragraph. Located off the western coast of Honshu,
it's called in Japanese Hegurajima, or
simply, as noted in the first paragraph, Hegura.
Although that island is small (one can walk its perimeter in less than an
hour), it was on Hegura that we saw the biggest number of birds: 111 of the
205 species found totally during the entire 2-week tour.
That tally of 111 species was
our highest there (surpassing the 102 species that we saw in 2004).
Hegura Island is a place to see not only "Japanese" birds, but also
some more common elsewhere in Asia. Such birds, that are vagrants or rarities in
Japan, and nearly annual for us on Hegura, have included these, seen again
during our tour in '07:
Mugimaki Flycatcher, Swinhoe's Robin, and Tristram's Bunting.
Other birds more of mainland Asia that we saw on Hegura in '07 were:
Little & Yellow-browed Buntings, Isabelline & Pied
Wheatears, Chinese Grosbeak, Daurian (or Purple-backed) Starling,
Black-naped Oriole, and the avian "star of the show" for the
Japanese birders also on the island when we were, the Black Drongo.

Black-naped Oriole
Also on Hegura Island, we saw 2
Chinese Pond Herons.
Nearby, a day or so earlier, when we were on the mainland of Japan (that would
be Honshu), on the picturesque Noto Peninsula, in a rural area, we saw a Chinese
Egret on a wet ricefield, another Japanese rarity.
From the passenger ferry between the Noto Peninsula and Hegura island, we saw Japanese
Murrelet on the water, and many Streaked Shearwaters in flight. (Yes
it's a passenger ferry. On Hegura, there are no motor vehicles other than 1
small red firetruck and 1 small white ambulance.)
On the southern island of Okinawa (in a forested region called Yambaru), we saw
both the Okinawa Rail and the Okinawa Woodpecker.
The former was "new to science" in the 1980's. The latter is very
rare.
The rail we saw at dusk our first day on the island.
The woodpecker we saw the next morning at a nest.
Another very rare bird was seen during our stay on the island of Amami. It's an
endemic, the Amami Thrush.
Also on that island we saw an animal that's seen only very rarely, the nocturnal
Amami Rabbit of the deep forest in the hills, where also after dark, one
night, we encountered at least 25 Ryukyu Scop-Owls. Most of them we
heard; a few we saw.
Among the birds that we saw on Kyushu were the Fairy Pitta and the Copper
Pheasant. Both of these are certainly "notables"!
The latter is a Japanese endemic, as is the Green Pheasant that we also
were glad to see earlier during the tour.
These Japanese pheasants were really 2 of many sightings that we were
happy to have in Japan in the Spring of 2007.

Narcissus Flycatcher
Given thus far, in capsule form, have been some of the highlights of the tour.
Following, now, are some more of the details.
During our 2007 Japan Spring Birding Tour, as
noted 205 species of birds were found. Nearly all of them were seen. Just a few
(owls & nightjar) were heard in the dark of night on either
Kyushu or Okinawa (Oriental & Ryukyu
Scops-Owls on the latter).
Cumulatively, during the 11 FONT spring Japan tours, 301 species of birds have
been found, including the following that were "added to the list" in
May 2007:
Falcated Duck
Long-toed Stint
Spotted Redshank
Ural Owl (heard)
House Swift
TREE PIPIT
Bluethroat
ISABELLINE WHEATEAR
PIED WHEATEAR
RADDE'S WARBLER
DAURIAN (or PURPLE-BACKED) STARLING
BLACK DRONGO !!! (THE BIRD of "Japan Spring 2007")
YELLOW-BILLED (or CHINESE) GROSBEAK
Chestnut-eared (or Grey-headed) Bunting
YELLOW-BROWED BUNTING
LITTLE BUNTING
The capitalized birds in the above list were new for ANY Japan tour (9 birds). All of these capitalized birds are rarities in Japan.
Elsewhere in this web-site (from
a link at the beginning of this narrative), there's a list of the birds that
have cumulatively been seen during our 6 tours on Hegura
Island. That list is now up to 172 species.
During May '07, we added 22. They were:
Little Grebe
Common Ringed Plover
Wood Sandpiper
TREE PIPIT
ISABELLINE WHEATEAR
Meadow Bunting
YELLOW-BROWED BUNTING
LITTLE BUNTING
BLACK DRONGO
YELLOW-BILLED (or CHINESE) GROSBEAK
Chestnut-eared (or Grey-headed) Bunting
Striated Heron
Ruddy Kingfisher
Eurasian Sparrowhawk
Long-toed Stint
"Eurasian" Whimbrel
RADDE'S WARBLER
Varied Tit
DAURIAN (or PURPLE-BACKED) STARLING
Terek Sandpiper
Bluethroat
PIED WHEATEAR
Again, the species in capital
letters were new for ANY FONT Japan Tour.
With the May 2007 tour, the cumulative list of birds during all of the FONT
Japan tours is 388 species.
111 species of birds were
tallied during our May 2007 tour on Hegura Island. That's the most we've ever
had during a single visit.
Here's the breakdown of the number of species we've seen on Hegura over the
years:
2001: 72
2002: 56
2004: 102
2005: 74
2006: 88
2007: 111
Our dates on Hegura Island have bee:
2001: April 16-17 (1
night)
2002: May 6-7 (1 night)
2004: May 15-18 (3 nights)
2005: May 19-21 (2 nights)
2006: May 10-12 (2 nights)
2007: May 9-12 (3 nights)
The 2 times that we topped 100 species were the 2 times that we were there 3
nights.

Siberian Rubythroat on
Hegura Island
Here's a note pertaining to another record-high number for us during our May
2007 Japan tour:
There were 12 species of
BUNTINGS, 11 of which were on Hegura Island.
The '07 Buntings were:
Grey, Black-faced, Japanese Yellow, Meadow, Chestnut-eared, Yellow-throated,
Yellow-browed, Little, Tristram's, Rustic, Common Reed, and Japanese Reed.
The last of these was not on Hegura, but on mainland Honshu.
3 of these are rarities in Japan, being more-common on mainland Asia: the Yellow-browed,
Little, and Tristram's.
2 Buntings not present in 2007 were found, however, during our previous tours on
Hegura Island:
the Chestnut (in 2004), and the Yellow-breasted (in 2004 & 2005).
So, out of 14, this time there were 12, our most for 1 year!
As already notd, Hegura Island, in the Sea of Japan off Honshu, was not the only
island that we visited during our May 2007 Japan tour.
We also went to the more-southerly islands of Okinawa,
Amami, and Kyushu.
We had planned on 3 days on Okinawa in order
to have the time, if we needed it, to find two birds that can be difficult to
see.
One of these, the Okinawa Rail, is a flightless bird of the forest that's
only been known to science for a couple decades. It's shy, and there's a reason
why it escaped detection on a mostly populous island until the 1980's. We saw
the species, during May '07, during our first afternoon on the island. We saw 2
of the rails along the side of a little road, "out in the country".
The second bird that can be difficult to find is the Okinawa Woodpecker,
one of the rarest woodpeckers in the world. We saw it our first morning in the
forested part of the island where it has a very restricted range. We quietly
watched a parent woodpecker at a nest hole, feeding young. The adult
woodpeckers, during nesting time, are also quiet. More audible were the young
birds in the tree cavity.
Another nice bird to see in Okinawa was the Japanese Paradise Flycatcher.
During a walk in the woods, we certainly enjoyed the adult male, with its long
tail, on a branch above us.
Amami is a Japanese island that's quite
special. Not many visitors go there, to an island "off the beaten
path" as it were, but FONT has a number of times - well over a dozen.
We've gone, not just because it's a beautiful island covered with forested
hills, or because there's more tradition and less neon lights than in most of
Japan, but because there are some special birds to be seen.
Probably the most notable among them is the colorful Lidth's Jay. It's
endemic to Amami and one very small nearby island. Colorful, yes, it's a rich
chestnut and purple-blue.
There's another specialty of Amami that's not only endemic, but also very rare,
and a skulker - in all, making it a difficult bird to see. It's the Amami
Thrush, and we saw it our first day on Amami, when also we encountered our
first Whistling Green-Pigeons and Amami Woodpecker - the latter
has been considered a distinctive subspecies of the White-backed Woodpecker -
but without very much white on its back. A species, or a subspecies, it's only
on Amami.
Amami is at the north end of a string of small islands known as the Ryukyus.
On the island, we saw the dapper Ryukyu Robin (as we did on Okinawa,
further south in Ryukyus), the Ryukyu Flycatcher (a recent split from the
Narcissus Flycatcher), and one night we encountered about 25 Ryukyu
Scops-Owls.
Also that night, at about midnight, in the forest, we came across a Ruddy
Kingfisher perched at about eye-level on a branch. That bird is not only
brightly colorful in then middle of the day. In the light from our vehicle, it
also was brilliant in the middle of the night.
On Kyushu, the southernmost of the main
Japanese islands, our primary avian objective was the beautiful Fairy Pitta,
a bird with seven colors. We saw it.
In that forest, there was another pigeon and woodpecker duo, as
there was in Amami.
It was another Green Pigeon, the White-bellied. The Woodpecker
was the Japanese Green, an endemic to Japan. And there was another
notable Woodpecker in that forest, the White-backed, with, in this
subspecies, white in its back.
In another area of forested hills in Kyushu, birds for us included the brilliant
Oriental Roller and one that could be called a true prize, the endemic Copper
Pheasant!
When the pheasant was seen, It was on a remote road, as it walked slowly, but
with determination, into the brush, not to be seen again.
We went back to that remote road again, however, late that night. Along it, we
did not encounter any birds, but we did see as many as 6 species of mammals:
Raccoon Dog, Red Fox, Sika Deer, Eurasian Wild Boar, Large Japanese Fieldmouse,
and True's Shrew-mole.
Also that night, but elsewhere, we did see a Japanese Scops-Owl, and we
heard Ural Owl and Grey Nightjar.
The Copper Pheasant, just noted on Kyushu, was one of our tour
highlights. But it was mot the only pheasant seen during the tour.
Earlier, on the main island of Honshu, we
enjoyed another pheasant that's also endemic to Japan, the Green
Pheasant.
It is, actually, the national bird of Japan. Depicted on their money, the 10,000
yen note, is the female.
But, the male, as the one we saw during our tour, is a wonderful bird to see.
Even though it's called the Green Pheasant, that color is just one of a few in
its plumage.
Among other birds we saw on Honshu, notable ones were:
the Long-billed Plover,
the Marsh Grassbird (an uncommon & local bird that's also been called
the Japanese Marsh Warbler),
and attractive male Falcated Ducks.
During our travels, we looked over numerous rice-fields where we did see a
number of birds. Some of these birds we saw many times, such as the Snipe
and an assortment of egrets.
In eastern Honshu, the bird we saw most on rice-fields was the Pacific Golden
Plover.
In western Honshu, the bird we saw the most on rice-fields was the Black-tailed
Gull. Among the more unusual birds we saw on rice-fields were a flock of Spotted
Redshanks mostly in breeding plumage, and, elsewhere, Grey-headed Lapwing.
But the prize of the rice-fields was the Chinese Egret (noted earlier)
that we found, by itself, on such a field in rural, western Honshu on the Noto
Peninsula. That species is a rarity in Japan, and is actually, a rather uncommon
bird, overall.
We experienced another unusual sighting on the Noto Peninsula when, as we were
driving after dark, a Eurasian Badger crossed a country road in front of
us.
Given here have been just some of our notable sightings and experiences during 2
weeks in Japan. Mostly mention has been made of birds and animals - the nature
of Japan, but we also saw and experienced the culture of the country, in so many
ways, including the food, the places, and the people.
We had a wonderful tour, in May 2007 in Japan.
***********************************
After returning home, an e-mail was received by FONT from one of the people we
met in Japan, Mr. Shogo Matsui, who was one of the authors of the bird book that
we've used in Japan for so many years, "A Field Guide to the Birds of
Japan" (in English), published by the Wild Bird Society of Japan in 1982 .
Parts of that e-mail, and one in response to him by Armas Hill, follow:
Sent from Japan 5/13/2007, from Japan:
"Dear Mr. Hill,
It was my pleasure meeting you
at Hegura-jima birding. We were all deeply impressed watching you and your tour
members so eagerly, actively, and joyfully watching the birds. You are so
energetic and active and have excellent knowledge of birds, and I would say you
are really doing fine as a birding guide.
I think you've seen more birds than we did. I have not come up with the final
figure but it is about 100 species, including 5 lifers for me.
We have returned home safely last night, after driving some 550km, stopping at
another good spot in Nagano Prefecture.
I hope you enjoyed the rest of you tour, and made it home safely.
With best regards
Shogo Matsui"
In response to Mr. Matsui's (or Matsui-san's) e-mail
(in part):
"Hello Shogo Matsui,
Thank you so very much for the
nice e-mail message that I found from you when I returned home from Japan (just
over a week ago). And it was so very good to meet you when we were in Japan,
visiting Hegura Island.
On the left-side of the home-page in the FONT web-site, the list of birds during
our tour can be found from the link under "past tour highlights -
2007".
The number of birds that we saw on Hegura was 111. That's not much more than the
100 or so birds that you saw - 5 of which were "lifers" for you. By
the way, during my visit to Hegura-jima in May 2007, 7 species were
"lifers" for me.
The only bird that I think I forgot to tell you about (when I was there) was a
Pied Wheatear that I saw in the corner of the island not far from the minshuku
where we stayed. The
Isabelline Wheatear we saw was at the other end of the island. And, of course,
it looked different.
Another "lifer" for me
was you. It was such an honor to meet one of the authors of the Japanese bird
book (in English) that I bought and valued so much many years ago - in the
1980's - when I first started birding in Japan. By myself, in those days, I
traveled around the country, looking for birds!
By now, I've done bird-watching in Japan nearly 35 times. During 28 of those
visits in Japan in more than 15 years, I have been bringing other bird-watchers
with me, as I've been leading tours there.
I've watched those bird-watchers so many times as they have been thrilled to see
the birds such as the cranes, eagles, and Blakiston's Fish-Owl, in addition, of
course, to the wonderful birds in the spring on islands such as Hegura, Amami,
and Okinawa.
Very best regards,
Armas Hill"
![]()
Japan
Winter Birding Tour
(to Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, & Amami)
January
2007
Links:
List of Birds & Other Wildlife during our Japan Winter Tour in '07
During this, our January
15-30, 2007 Japan Winter Birding Tour, which was the 27th FONT birding
& nature tour in Japan, and the 17th such tour in the winter, among the
highlights, as always, were the cranes and the eagles.
During this tour, there
were 5 species of Cranes (Red-crowned, White-naped, Hooded, Common,
& Sandhill), and large numbers of both Steller's Sea-Eagles
and White-tailed Eagles were observed.
And once again, as during every
FONT Japan tour in the winter, we saw the big & rare Blakiston's Fish-Owl.
Other notable bird species during the tour included: Copper Pheasant,
Solitary Snipe, Black-faced Spoonbill, Spectacled Guillemot, Long-billed
Murrelet & other alcids, Laysan Albatross, Mandarin Duck, and Hodgson's
Hawk-Eagle.
During the tour the 3 main Japanese islands of Honshu,
Hokkaido,
and Kyushu were visited. Lastly we went to the smaller island of
Amami, where we
saw the bird specialties (endemic or nearly-so) including: the Amami
Woodcock, Amami Thrush, Lidth's Jay, and Ryukyu Robin.
During this
tour Japanese Macaques (or "Snow Monkeys") were seen on
2 islands, Honshu & Kyushu.
The above paragraphs put in capsule form some highlights of the tour. A more
descriptive narrative follows:
All of our Japan tours begin on the main Japanese island of Honshu. That's
because the Narita International Airport, northeast of Tokyo, is the major
gateway into the country. And so it's good fortune that the birding on Honshu
can be extraordinarily good, no matter what season we are there. It's because
Honshu is a large island, and with varied topography. There are open flat
lowlands and there are forested mountainous highlands. Yes, there are people,
many of them. But it's interesting that, throughout Japan, 80 per cent of those
people live on 20 per cent of the land. And so, it's surprising to many who have
traveled in Japan with us, over nearly 20 years, that one doesn't really have to
go far from Tokyo (or Narita) to find countryside where there's nature and some
good birding.
During our 2007 Japan Winter Birding Tour, after we arrived on Honshu, we went first to some open, flat lowlands, not very far from Narita. In
a river valley, with islands with agricultural fields and areas of reed-beds, we
saw a nice number of 2 species of Harriers (the Eastern Marsh, and the
Northern,
or Hen) hunting over the fields. In the reeds, we found 2 species of aptly-named
Reed Buntings (the Common and the Japanese). The second of these we normally
find in that area during our tours in the spring. It was warm that January day,
seemingly almost as warm as when we visit in May. A Ruddy-breasted Crake was
heard calling in the reeds.
We traveled downriver a bit to where it meets the ocean, and where there's a
large fishing port. The riverbanks there are literally covered with birds. There
are many cormorants and ducks, and almost more gulls than can be imagined. When
we there in the afternoon, the fishing boats were coming into port. Above the
dozens of boats with their catches, there were swarms of gulls, thousands of
them - in the sky, on the water, on the ground, on roofs, everywhere. Even for
those not as fond of gulls as they are of other birds, it was a spectacle to
behold with much to observe as there were 8 species of Gulls in an assortment
of plumages: Common Black-headed, Black-tailed, Kamchatka (or Mew),
Vega
(formerly Herring), Slaty-backed, Glaucous-winged, Glaucous, and Black-legged
Kittiwake.

Just two of many gulls
along the Japanese coast.
Vega Gull (left) & Slaty-backed Gull (right)
Some Japanese birders were looking for
Thayer's Gull (at a
traditional spot for it). They hadn't found it when we spoke with them (in a
little English and a little Japanese), but they did tell us of a Black-faced
Spoonbill on the other side of the river. We thanked them and went to the
said-spot hoping to see the rare bird. And that we did. The Black-faced
Spoonbill is one of the rarest birds in the world. It's total population is said
to be under 700 birds that breed locally in Korea and China. Every year some
winter in Japan, usually in the southern part of country. We've seen it during
our winter tours previously in Kyushu, Okinawa, and Amami (1 bird once on the
last of these). This was the first time (in 17 winter tours) that we saw the
bird in Honshu.
Our afternoon at the fishing port ended by a sheltered cove, where we watched
grebes and cormorants fishing in the clear water beneath us. The Cormorants were
the Japanese (or Temminck's). The Grebes were of 3 species:
Great Crested, Red-necked, and Horned. The small fish in the water there were plentiful. Oh
yes, there were ducks there, too. Ducks, of a number of species, are also
plentiful in the winter in Japan.
The next day we were in a completely different world. We were still on Honshu,
but we had driven just over 2 hours to an area of forested hills. We spent the
night in wonderful little hotel in the forest, with a Japanese hot bath (or
onsen). As the day began, outside the window as we had breakfast, birds were at
the feeders. Some light snow was falling. It was, simply put, a beautiful setting
(and, as noted, one almost wouldn't believe that in this woods we were just a
short drive from the sprawl of Tokyo). Among the birds at the feeders, there
were a number of Japanese Grosbeaks and some Varied Tits. Stepping outside, when
we'd put seeds into the palms, the Varied Tits would land on our hands to have
their breakfast.
At another feeding station nearby, with not only feeders with seed and suet,
there was some open water, much like a spring. There we were treated to good
looks of the endemic Japanese Accentor, the Northern (or Winter)
Wren, and the
Yellow-throated Bunting by the water, in addition to the regular cast of
characters including an assortment of tits, nuthatch, woodpeckers, and finches.
Between the two sets of feeders, out in the woods, a stream with open water
flowed where otherwise there was snow on the ground and the trees were bare.
From along the edge of that stream, a Solitary Snipe flew up into the sky. That
species winters at such spots in the forested hills of Japan. Alone, as it is,
after all, the Solitary Snipe. This one bird was the first for us (again, in 17
tours in the winter). The species is not in Japan outside the winter, as it
breeds in places such as Siberia and Manchuria, not alone but only in pairs
spread out with nests in remote locations. Ours was a nice bird to see. In the
stream itself, there were Brown Dippers in the water, also nice to see. The
Brown Dipper of eastern Asia, Cinclus pallasii, is named after Peter Simon
Pallas, who lived from 1741 to 1811. He was the most eminent explorer-naturalist
of his day. One of his journeys was a 6-year expedition (1768-74) across Russia,
east from St, Petersburg to Lake Baikal and beyond. One can wonder if he ever
encountered the Solitary Snipe where it breeds in that remote region
"beyond".
During our time in hilly, central Honshu, there were a couple other notable
sightings. Late in the afternoon, as it was getting a bit foggy, a Ural Owl flew
in front of us as traveled along a road. It was seen nicely, but it would been
good if we could have found nearby perched in a tree.
The next morning, when there was a bright blue sky, the treelimbs in the forest were
covered with a layer of snow. It was a beautiful morning, which could have been
better with just one thing. We were trying, before we had to leave the area, to
see a bird that's always at or near the top of the "most-wanted list"
for most birders visiting Japan. The bird: the endemic Copper Pheasant. On the
fresh snow, at the edge of a side-road, we saw fresh tracks. And, then, shortly
later, near that spot, it was as good as it gets when a male Copper Pheasant
walked out in front of us, as we sat in our vehicle. For a while, the bird stood
still, and thus, we got a long look at that exquisite bird with the long tail!
Yes. it was as good as it gets.

A male Copper Pheasant
The birds noted so far (after the first paragraph) were all on Honshu, where,
yes, as it's been said, the birding can be "extraordinarily good".
But, really, during our Japan Winter Tours, it's the birds of Hokkaido and
Kyushu that normally get the top-billing - the cranes, the eagles, and the
Blakiston's Fish-Owl.
To go from Honshu to Hokkaido, we have, over the years, taken an overnight ferry
as a pelagic trip on the Pacific. And that we did again in January '07. The
ferry is a large boat, on which after boarding we sleep, and then all-day
offshore we can scan the sea for birds. We were this time as the boat has a
good, big enclosed area in the front end of the boat, from which we could see
the sea ahead of us.
In recent years, for whatever reason, we have not been seeing, during this trip,
as many Laysan Albatrosses as we did in the past. In '07, however, that trend
was reversed. Maybe it was because we could watch ahead of us continuously in
comfort, but this time we saw about 50 Laysan Albatrosses flying in their
distinctive style above the water.
And having the good area for observation certainly enabled us to see alcids
better than usual (as it's always better to observe them in front of the boat).
From our vantage point on the ferry, as we headed north, offshore from Honshu,
and continuing into colder waters, the alcids we saw were: Common Murre,
Thick-billed Murre, Spectacled Guillemot, Pigeon Guillemot, Long-billed Murrelet,
Ancient Murrelet, and Least Auklet. Most of these we saw in rather large
numbers.
Hokkaido in January is a land of winter. It always has been for us, although
January 2007 was warmer than usual. From eastern Hokkaido, there's a boat-trip
that goes to the edge of the oceanic ice. It's a good way to see more alcids
(which we did) on the water, while on the ice, Steller's Sea-Eagles and possibly
other interesting birds can be seen. This year, the ice was too far from shore,
so 1) the boat didn't go to it, 2) the trip cost a little less, but 3) we did
see alcids again nicely on the water, particularly with good looks of the
Spectacled Guillemot, a species that's rather restricted to the Sea of Okhotsk
and comparable waters of northeast Asia.
Back onshore, along the eastern coast of Hokkaido, we were treated to flocks of
colorful Harlequin Ducks, other Ducks including Falcated, Glaucous Gulls
(usually very common in eastern Hokkaido), an Iceland Gull (rare in Japan), a
Gyrfalcon that caused a swarm of gulls to fly into the air as it flew by, and
the stars of the show, the Eagles - one of those stars is even called "Steller".
Both the Steller's Sea-Eagles and the White-tailed Eagles were seen nicely and
in good numbers during our tour.

Steller's Sea-Eagles in
eastern Hokkaido
In January '07, along the eastern Hokkaido coast, we saw a small and colorful
bird that we don't normally see on Hokkaido in the winter: a male Daurian
Redstart. Usually we see it further south. So, this time, we saw this species
that only winters in Japan, on all 4 of the islands that we visited (north to
south: Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu, and Amami).
During all of our 16 previous Winter Japan Birding Tours, we've seen the
Blakiston's Fish-Owl. Localized in Japan only in Hokkaido, it is one of the
world's rarest owls. (Occurring also in the wilderness of eastern Siberia, it's
far from plentiful there also - in that land where the Siberian Tiger lives.)
It's exciting to see the Blakiston's not only because it's rare, but also
because it's huge, being one of the largest of the world's owls. At dusk, we
were at the right spot. We heard first the deep call of the bird. Then, with
their large wingspans, two of them flew in to perch in trees near us! For FONT,
it was the Blakiston's Fish-Owl for the 17th time.
In the town where we spent a couple nights in eastern Hokkaido, there are some
shops where local people sell woodcarvings that they've made of the
Blakiston's Fish-Owl. After seeing the owl in life, it was nice to see (and buy)
the woodwork in the store. Being in Hokkaido is such a great experience, so far
away from the world in which most of us live.
Down the road, from the town with the shops, the Hokkaido experience is
reinforced in the morning, as Whooper Swans swim and call enshrouded by mist in
the waters of a big lake. Those noisy Whoopers are only in Hokkaido during the
winter. When Hokkaido warms up, they go north to Siberia, where they breed.
The Red-crowned Cranes in Hokkaido, also vocal, are there, however, throughout
the year. They don't leave. In the winter, however, they flock up together at
certain places, where watching them is one of a birder's highlights of a
lifetime. Also known as Japanese Cranes, these tall stately birds can be seen in
the winter, against a beautiful snowy background, jumping into the air, and can
be heard making their bugle-like sounds. In the first half of the 20th Century,
that sound nearly became silenced when the species in Japan flirted with
extinction. It was nearly as rare as the Whooping Crane of North America. How
great it is that both species were not lost, when really they very well could
have been. Today, there are about 900 Red-crowned (or Japanese) Cranes in
Hokkaido (the only place in Japan where they occur). We saw at one place more
than 200 of
them.

Red-crowned (or Japanese)
Crane
Seeing the cranes in Japan is of course a wonderful experience, but it can
enhanced by the reading of a book, published not that long ago in 2001,
"The Birds of Heaven - Travels with Cranes", by Peter Matthiessen.
There's a chapter in that well-written book about the Red-crowned Cranes in
Hokkaido.
As good as it is that now there are nearly a thousand cranes in Hokkaido, in
Kyushu during the winter, there are about 7,000. They come to one particular
area there every year from mainland Asia, where in the summer their nesting area
is spread across many miles of mostly Siberia. In the winter, however, they come
to be together in a large grouping of about 5,000 Hooded Cranes and 2,000
White-naped Cranes. Adults and young of the year are seen together, among the large
flocks.
For years, we've come, from other parts of the world, to see these birds. Again,
as with the cranes on Hokkaido, it's quite an experience. Every year, a few
cranes of other species are also in the flocks. Every year, we've seen Common
Cranes and Sandhill Cranes, as we did again in January '07. Some years, there
have been Siberian Crane and Demoiselle Crane. During the 2006-07 winter, birds
of those 2 species were not in
Japan.

Hooded & White-naped
Cranes in Kyushu
Cranes are not the only birds that come to Kyushu, Japan from mainland Asia to
spend the winter. Not far from the cranes, we saw some small birds in the reeds
that did the same thing: Chinese Penduline Tits and Pallas's Reed Bunting
(another Asian bird named after Peter Simon Pallas). Having done the same type
of journey were the Daurian Jackdaws that we saw mixed in among the Rooks
(also
from mainland Asia) on the telephone wires. The Northern Lapwings and Temminck's
Stints that we saw on the fields did the same thing. They, too, are only in
Japan during the winter.
The cranes that winter in Kyushu are well-known in ornithological circles. Not
as well known, in Kyushu in the winter are the large flocks of Mandarin Ducks
present there only during that season. They are on the other side of Kyushu. We
enjoy seeing them along a particular river in a valley surrounded by forested
hills. During a day, we see at least a couple thousand of these beautiful ducks,
with different colors but otherwise similar to the Wood Duck of North America.
The Mandarins that winter in Kyushu are shy. The flocks fly up quickly from the
aqua-blue water of the river. In a telescope, and with binoculars, observing the
large number of Mandarins is yet another wonderful Japanese experience.

Male & female
Mandarins
In January 2007, as we were having this experience, 2 Mountain Hawk-Eagles were soaring in circles overhead above the forested hills. Not far away that day, on the ground, there were Olive Tree Pipits walking about, and a White's Ground Thrush feeding. In trees, nearby, Japanese Grosbeaks were doing the same, eating berries. By a temple, during our time in Kyushu, there was more activity in trees as Japanese Macaques, also known as "Snow Monkeys" were moving about.
We had so many wonderful experiences during our January 2007 Winter Tour in Japan. Such experiences we plan to have again when we return to Honshu, Hokkaido, and Kyushu, during our next Japan Winter Tour, to be later in 2007, December 9-18.
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JAPAN SPRING
BIRDING TOUR (to
Honshu, including Hegura Island)
May 2006
Links:
List of Birds & Other Wildlife during our Japan Spring Tour in '06
Cumulative List of Birds during our Japan Spring Birding Tours
The following account written by Armas Hill, leader
of the tours:
During the May
2006 FONT birding & nature tour in Japan
(our 26th tour there; our 10th in the spring), there were thousands of Streaked
Shearwaters seen from the ferry (an hour-and-a-half ride) to Hegura
Island in the Sea of Japan. Also
in flocks, were hundreds, as many as a thousand, Red-necked Phalaropes.
The water of the sea was smooth. And, as it was like glass, the alcids
sitting on the water were relatively easy to spot. Most were Rhinoceros
Auklets. There were also Japanese Murrelets, which are endemic to
Japan, endangered, and attractive black-and-white birds with a nice Japanese
name, "Kanmuri-umisuzume", It's pronounced as it looks.
The alcids breed on rocky islets by which the ferry closely passes. On
the slopes of those small islands, thousands of Black-tailed Gulls were
at their nesting sites. Many were seen flying close to the boat.
During the return ferry-ride from the island a couple days later, Streaked
Shearwaters still abounded. The sea was not as calm, and there was more of a
breeze. So more shearwaters were seen in flight, probably as many as 20,000.
During the earlier trip to the island, with different conditions, an estimated
10,000 were seen. It was fun to watch so many shearwaters, in flocks lifting
from the water and flying about. The species is actually incredibly abundant
over oceanic waters around Japan, where the total population is said to be
between 2.5 and 5 million.
As noted, our ferry-ride was to and from a place called Hegura
Island (or Hegura-jima).
That little island is one of the foremost places anywhere in the world to
experience bird migration. For its size, it may well be the best piece of land
on Earth for such migration, during the spring (and it's also good later in
the year, in the late-summer and fall, although FONT has yet to be there then). Such
statements are not exaggerations. As many as approximately 360 species of birds
have been recorded on Hegura Island. And at least a new species is added every
year.
Hegura Island is in the Sea of Japan, off the west coast of Honshu (the main
Japanese island). And yes, it is small - only 1 kilometer wide and less than
2 kilometers long. One can easily walk the path around the entire coastline of
the island in less than an hour.
Some people live on the island. But not many, about 150. There was a small store
(no longer), an inn (where fortunately we can overnight and have
meals), some homes, a school (just recently closed; there was an
enrollment of 5), and 1 doctor. The most prominent structure on the island
is a tall, white lighthouse. In the morning, the women of Hegura dive offshore
for seaweed. Later in the day, if sunny, they put it out to dry. Men go out on
boats to fish.
People, such as us during our Spring Birding Tour in Japan, go to Hegura to
bird. During our 2006 tour, we were on
Hegura May 10-12. It was our 5th tour to
visit Hegura. 4 of the tours have been in the month of May. Once, we visited in
April. In all, during those 5 tours, we've found a cumulative total of 151
species of birds on Hegura Island. A complete list of those birds is elsewhere
in this website (there's a link above).
During spring migration, landbirds, shorebirds, and waterbirds occur
on Hegura. Many landbirds, especially as they travel at night, on their way
north, come across the small island in the sea. Given optimum conditions, in the
spring, the island can be filled with birds. They're in the open on fields, or
they're in bushes, small trees, under debris by the homes, or along the rocky
coast. In short, they can be everywhere.
Birds that elsewhere can be notorious skulkers are often, on Hegura, more out in
the open. In that category, for example, are the shy Japanese Robin, Siberian
Blue Robin (*), and the White's Ground Thrush (*). (Those with an (*)
were found during our May '06 tour.)
Routine migrants are enroute from where they've wintered in the Asian tropics to
where they'll breed as far north as Siberia. These include: Siberian
Rubythroat (*), Siberian Stonechat (*), and Yellow-breasted
Bunting. (Again, those with an (*) were found during our May '06
tour.)
There are, on Hegura, birds migrating north that are generally more common on
the Asian mainland along the Chinese and Korean coasts than they are in Japan.
There are a number of birds in that category that we've seen during our 5 FONT
tours on the island, including: Chinese Egret (*), Chinese Pond Heron
(*), Purple Heron (*), Hoopoe, Richard's Pipit, White-throated Rock
Thrush, Swinhoe's (or Rufous-tailed) Robin (*), Dusky
Warbler, Mugimaki Flycatcher (*), Tricolored Flycatcher (*), Red-throated
Flycatcher, Black-naped Oriole, Chestnut Bunting, and Tristram's Bunting
(*). (Once again, those species with an (*) were found during our tour in May
'06.)
In all, we saw 84 species of birds on Hegura Island in May 2006.
Among them, in addition to those already referred to above with an (*), we also
saw:
both Temminck's and Pelagic Cormorants,
Japanese Sparrowhawk, Grey-faced Buzzard, Northern Hobby, and Peregrine
Falcon,
Mongolian Plover, Black-tailed Godwit, Red-necked Stint, Green and Common
Sandpipers,
Grey-tailed (or Polynesian) Tattler,
Common and Latham's Snipes,
Black-tailed, Vega (Herring), Slaty-backed, and Glaucous-winged Gulls,
Common, Oriental, and Lesser Cuckoos,
a Jungle (or Grey) Nightjar sitting still
during the day on a fence, and asleep even as it was surrounded by people with
cameras, binoculars, and telescopes (a photo of this bird is now on the
home-page of our website: www.focusonnature.com)
the Dollarbird (a Roller),
Buff-bellied Pipit (the Siberian race) and Yellow Wagtail,
Ashy Minivet,
Red-flanked Bluetail (also called either Siberian Bluechat or
Orange-flanked Bush-Robin)
Siberian Thrush, Japanese Grey Thrush, Eye-browed Thrush, Dusky Thrush,
Japanese Bush Warbler, Oriental Great Reed Warbler, Black-browed Reed Warbler,
Eastern Crowned Warbler, Sikhalin (or Pale-legged) Warbler,
Arctic Warbler,
Blue-and-white Flycatcher (the males are beautiful), Asian Brown
Flycatcher,
Siberian (or Dark-sided) Flycatcher, Grey-streaked
Flycatcher,
Narcissus Flycatcher (this was certainly a favorite bird of our visit -
the attractive males were so common and so tame, sometimes they were in bushes
and trees, but other times they were on sidewalks in front of us, on fences
beside us - just about anywhere!)
Japanese Paradise Flycatcher (what a gem!),
Brown Shrike,
Brambling, Eurasian Siskin, Hawfinch,
Japanese Yellow Bunting, Yellow-throated Bunting, Rustic Bunting.
Among the most interesting aspects relating to the bird migration when we were
at Hegura in May '06 was that there were 3 "special" egrets &
herons among others at one corner of the island. With Little,
Intermediate, and Great Egrets, and some Grey Herons at pools
of water among the rocks by the shore, there were "the 3", 1 of each: Chinese
Egret, Chinese Pond Heron, and Purple Heron. It was like a little
piece of China at that one spot on the island. And all 3 were "new
birds" for us, not just for Hegura, but for Japan.
The Chinese (or Swinhoe's) Egret, that breeds
along the coasts of China and Korea, is one of the rarest egrets in the world.
The population is estimated as being between 1,800 and 2,500 birds. Other
heron-types that are more rare are also in Asia: the White-bellied Heron (of
Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Burma, now Myanmar), the White-eared Night-Heron
(of China), and the Japanese Night-Heron (breeds in Japan,
winters in the Philippines).
The Chinese Egret is similar to the Little Egret of the Old World
and the Snowy Egret of the New. It has a shaggy crest when in breeding
plumage as our bird was, more so than a Snowy, and not with a plume as
had by a Little. We enjoyed a good look at the rare bird.
Our look at the Chinese Pond Heron was nice, simply put, because in its
breeding plumage (as our bird was), it was a nice bird to see. It was an
attractive bird, with its head, neck, and breast a reddish-brown, its back
black, and its belly white.
The Purple Heron is another attractive bird that is in some ways
reminiscent of the Tricolored (formerly Louisiana) Heron
of North America. It, the Purple Heron that is, ranges across Eurasia.
The subspecies on Hegura was Ardea purpurea manilensis, the easternmost
of 3 subspecies, occurring from Siberia to the Philippines, but only as a
vagrant in Japan.

Swinhoe's Robin
Two names of people have been
referred to in this narrative in the names of birds, particularly the Swinhoe's
Robin and Swinhoe's (or Chinese) Egret,
and the Tristram's Bunting. Both of these men, Robert Swinhoe and Henry
Baker Tristram, were British ornithologists and collectors in the 1800s.
Robert Swinhoe collected specimens, that went to the British Museum in London,
from China. Not only were the robin and egret named after him, so
was a storm-petrel in the Far East.
Henry Baker Tristram traveled widely and collected specimens in North Africa and
the Middle East (Palestine), also for the British Museum. He lived for a while
in Bermuda, but during most of his life he lived in England. He collected
specimens during a visit to North America in the vicinity of Niagara Falls. His
collection of bird specimens, from around the world, was huge. In his early
seventies, he printed a catalog listing 17,000 skins in his collection, of about
6,000 species! And during the 10 years of his life after that he accumulated
another 7,000 skins that went to the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia! Tristram contributed articles extensively to the ornithological
journal, the Ibis. In addition to the Tristram's Bunting, a bird normally
of mainland Asia and not Japan, mentioned here earlier (and that we saw -
both male & female - on Hegura Island), a storm-petrel of the Far
East was named after him, as one was for Robert Swinhoe.
During May 2006, we saw the Tristram's Bunting on Hegura Island, Japan,
100 years after Henry Baker Tristram died in March 1906.

Tristram's Bunting
When we've visited Hegura Island
during our tours, we've always had the good fortune to share our experiences
with a number of Japanese birders and photographers. Dozens of them have visited
there when we have, also (like us) to see the birds, and of course to photograph
them too. They journey from throughout Japan to encounter the birds on their
journeys. One of the birds during our '06 Hegura tour was a particularly good
and well-known traveler, the Peregrine Falcon. Known for its journeying,
the bird even has a word synonymous with travel named after it,
"peregrination".
One morning on Hegura, a large female Peregrine was sitting on a big rock, by
the sea, along the shore. In front of it, there were about 2 dozen Japanese
photographers and birders with cameras set up and binoculars lifted up. The
Peregrine, resting during its trip probably from the tropics to the tundra, sat
there tamely, aware of, but rather oblivious to, the people. When we left Hegura
on the ferry later that day, the last bird on the island that we saw was that
Peregrine in the distance, perched high atop the communication tower.
During our May '06 tour, nearly 80 (actually 79) species of birds were
seen on the main Japanese island of Honshu.
Some were particularly notable, including:
the Great Knot, a shorebird that breeds only in eastern Siberia,
and winters in Australia and Southeast Asia,
and other shorebirds including Bar-tailed Godwits, Long-billed Plover,
Grey-tailed Tattler at a number of locations (even inland), and a fine flock
of Mongolian Plovers with many in their richly-colored breeding plumage (the
last of these is also called the Lesser Sandplover).
There were some nice birds along streams, including: 3 species of wagtails,
the Greater Pied Kingfisher, and the Brown Dipper.
In the forested hills of interior Honshu, we enjoyed Japanese Grosbeaks,
the Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, the Siberian Meadow Bunting, the
local race of the Eurasian Jay, and the Varied Tit (along with
other tits, Eurasian Nuthatch, Japanese White-eyes, and other
birds).
On a reservoir, among waterbirds, a bird that was particularly enjoyed
was an adult male Smew, that was in full-breeding plumage, but somehow
did not go north to breed.
That Smew was somewhat unexpected, but even more so was another species of
duck. After returning to Honshu on the ferry from Hegura, we traveled south
along the picturesque coastline of the Sea of Japan
with its rocks and cliffs. A fox was "new" for us, but the
birds during the ride were those already seen, until, on coastal rocks, a flock
of ducks was spotted. We were surprised, that time of year, and at that
rather southerly location in Japan, to see 5 Harlequin Ducks, 4 females
and a male. We've normally seen that species in Japan either on the northernmost
island of Hokkaido, or further north in Honshu on the Pacific Ocean side of the
island. Harlequins are a nice sight whenever and wherever they're seen.
Not easily seen (other than on Hegura), but continually heard throughout
Honshu, was the loud, almost explosive call of the Japanese Bush Warbler.
It's a small bird with a big voice. And the call is well known, as it's heard in
many places as the bird hides in the bushes, even in thickets near where people
live. The call is known well enough to be heard even inside. Let me explain.
There are what are called " family restaurants" in Japan. One called
"Joyfull" is similar, sort of, to "Denny's". In such
restaurants there are buttons to be pressed on the tables where people sit and
eat. A waiter or waitress comes, when one presses that button. When that's done,
a chime rings throughout the restaurant. But in "Joyfull" when we
pressed the button, there it was again! - that sound, yes, even inside - the
loud, explosive call of the Japanese Bush Warbler on speakers throughout
the restaurant. As birders when we heard it, we could not help but look.
It can be said that "if you find the restaurant, you find the birds".
Well, with the recorded call of the Japanese Bush Warbler inside "Joyfull",
not quite. But on Hegura Island, outside, it was true. The Japanese
photographers and birders there would put a small pile of feed ( seeds or rice),
for example, on rocks appropriately situated by the undercover. And, then, the
birds would come out to "their restaurant", and views could be
had and photos could be taken. We saw a number of birds in that way. As we stood
ever so still, birds that would normally be skulkers, were nicely seen. Among
them, these birds that have already been mentioned, but let's bring them back
now for a final curtain-call: Siberian Rubythroat, Siberian Blue Robin,
Red-flanked Bluetail, Siberian Thrush, Tricolored Flycatcher, Swinhoe's Robin,
and Tristram's Bunting.
What a wonderful experience it was to see those birds as we did! And it was a
wonderful aspect of our '06 tour in Japan in the spring.
Complete Bird-List from previous FONT Tours in Japan
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Japan
SPRING Birding Tour
(to Honshu, including Hegura Island, Amami, Okinawa, & Kyushu)
May
2005
Links:
List of Birds & Other Wildlife during our Japan Spring Tour in '05
The following account written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour:

White-throated Rock
Thrush, Monticola gularis,
during FONT tour on Hegura Island, Japan, May 21, 2005.
This species is quite a rarity in Japan. It is normally on mainland Asia,
breeding mostly in Manchuria and eastern Siberia, and wintering in southern
China, and further south in Southeast Asia.
Note in this photo the white patch on the throat.
(photograph by Iwasaki Shohgo)
Other birds we saw on Hegura
Island in '05, normally found on mainland Asia, included: Mugimaki
Flycatcher (the Japanese name notwithstanding, this species does not
occur throughout Japan), Black-naped Oriole, and Hoopoe.
When we visit Hegura, during the season when birds migrate, there's also a
migration to and from the island of Japanese birders. Many of them criss-cross
the small island, with their binoculars, scopes, and cameras (often big
cameras). When an avian rarity appears, somewhere on the island, word
spreads (quickly, now often on cellular phones and pagers).
During recent years, a number of bird species that were first records for
Japan, have occurred on Hegura Island. The day before we arrived in '05, a
Japanese first had been there for two days. That bird was an attractive Rufous-bellied
Woodpecker, from China, not in any Japanese bird book. There's a notable
bird migration on Hegura in the fall also. In the autumn of 2004, two Japanese
firsts there included Common Redstart from Europe, and Gray-cheeked
Thrush from North America.
It's very interesting how the bird
migration on Hegura Island changes throughout the day. During one of
our days there, in the morning, the islands seemed to be covered with cuckoos
- in particular, at that time, Common Cuckoos. They really were common.
As we walked around the island, they were in nearly every bush. There was the
constant calling of the "Kak-ku". That's how the bird says
its name in Japanese. Nearly all of those we saw were the gray morph. But,
there was a cuckoo that we saw, of the rufous morph, that was exhausted, as it
sat on stones on the ground right in front of us! Those stones were by the
sea. The bird had apparently just come in to the island.
After lunch that day, as we walked, there were no cuckoos. But instead, flycatchers
of a few species, seemed to be "everywhere". Mostly, they were Asian
Brown Flycatchers, but also present were: Dark-sided (or Siberian),
Gray-streaked, Narcissus, and Mugimaki, and a rarity - a single Red-throated
Flycatcher, feeding on a big rock. Over all of the fields and at the pools
along the rocky shoreline, there were flycatchers sallying for insects. At the
end of the day, flycatchers were flying into the air catching bugs from nearly
all of the small pine trees on the island. As the sun set below the horizon of
the Pacific Ocean, the "green
flash"
was visible. Then, in one of those pine trees where flycatchers
perched, a Japanese Scops-Owl called.
A complete listing of the now 141 bird
species we've found on Hegura Island in the Sea of Japan is elsewhere in
this web-site.
On the southern Japanese island of Okinawa,
during our May '05 tour, we did very well with our 2 primary target-birds of
the island: the very rare Okinawa Woodpecker and the Okinawa Rail,
the latter only known to science for about 25 years. During 2 days, we saw 2
Okinawa Woodpeckers at their nests feeding young (that could be heard
calling inside the tree cavities). The species is one of the rarest
woodpeckers in the world. Though not as rare as the recently-rediscovered
Ivory-billed Woodpecker in the United States, it is an extremely rare bird
with very few breeding pairs restricted to a limited area of northern
Okinawa.
The Okinawa Rail has a similar distribution in that same limited part
of the island. By late afternoon, during our first day on Okinawa, we had seen
7 Okinawa Rails, normally a shy species hard to see. (That's why it was not
formally identified until 1981.) One of the rails was seen very well as it
stopped on a road in the forest, just in front of us, as we sat in our
also-stopped vehicle.
The string of Japanese islands, that stretch to the south of the main islands,
are known as the Ryukyus, including
Okinawa, Amami, and others smaller. That word is an also adjective for some
birds of that region that we saw during our tour: the Ryukyu Robin, the
Ryukyu Flycatcher (a resident that was formerly considered a race of
the migratory Narcissus Flycatcher), the Ryukyu
Minivet, and the Ryukyu Scops-Owl (the last of these we saw in a
puddle, apparently bathing, on a dirt road in an Amami forest, when it was
still dark just before dawn).
On a beach in Amami, one afternoon, where
from previous tours we knew that shorebirds stage in the late spring,
we saw numerous Sharp-tailed Sandpipers, and other shorebirds (or
waders) that included: Terek Sandpipers, Grey-tailed Tattlers,
Bar-tailed Godwits, Red-necked Stints, and Mongolian Plovers. The Mongolian
Plover is also known as the Lesser Sandplover. Among a flock of
them, on that beach, there was a single Greater Sandplover (a rarity
in Japan).
For more than a decade we have, during our more than 10 tours on Amami, seen,
after dark, another "shorebird of sorts" that's endemic to some of
the Ryukyu Islands, the Amami Woodcock. During the 1990's, we actually
would see quite a few, and rather easily. However, in recent years, that has
not been the case. For whatever reason, the species seems to have declined.
During our tours just prior to May '05 (in Dec '04 & Feb '05), we
were fortunate to see 1 during each tour. We've seen the species during our
Amami tours in January, February, November, and December. We've not it during
our tours in May. (Maybe at that time of year, they're even more reclusive
in the dense foliage of the forest.)
What we did see in May '05, as we were combing the roads after dark for
woodcock, were 3 Habus. The Habu, Trimeresurus flavoviridis, is
a large, fierce snake in the family Viperidae. Habus have a
length as long as 200 centimeters (that's nearly 7 feet!). The first
one we saw (from our vehicle) as it was on the road, coiled into
circles, extending out its tail, and raising its head (looking like a cobra)..
During our pelagic trip, onboard a ferry
between Okinawa and Amami, we saw some Bulwer's Petrels, Streaked
Shearwaters and Short-tailed Shearwaters, Black-naped Terns and Roseate
Terns, and 3 species of dolphins, one of which was the Rough-toothed
Dolphin, in a pod seen "porpoising", surrounded by more-numerous
Bottle-nosed Dolphins.
Both Okinawa and Amami, in the spring, were, for us, great places for butterflies
as they were for birds. There were, during the middle hours of the sunny days,
large numbers of butterflies. Those we saw included:
Papilio polytes, known as the Common Mormon,
Papilio protenor, the Spangle,
Papilio helenus, Red Helen,
Papilio bianor, a beautiful Fluted Swallowtail, mostly
blackish with hues of blue and burgundy,
Papilio okinawensis, a species endemic to Okinawa,
Graphium sarpedon, known as the Blue Triangle, but mostly
turquoise; also known as the Common Bluebottle,
Graphium doson, the Common Jay,
Colias erate,
Eurema hecabe,
Catopsilia pomona, the Lemon Emigrant,
Hebomoia glaucippe, the Great Orange Tip,
Artogeia rapae,
Anosia chrysippus, the Plain Tiger,
Parantica sita,
Argyreus hyperbius,
Cyrestis thyodamas, an interesting butterfly (mostly white with dark
lines, bordered with some orange and brown) known as the Common Map,
Ypthima riukiuana,
and Melanitis phedima, posing like a brown leaf in the forest.
As beautiful as some of the forementioned butterflies are, the most beautiful
creature during our May '05 Japan Tour was, yes, a bird! Near the end
of the tour, in a forest in southern Kyushu, it was the Fairy Pitta! In
the Japanese language is it called "Yairocho", meaning "the
eight-colored bird". And absolutely brilliant some of those colors
are: notably the turquoise on the wings, and the bright red on the belly and
undertail. But also, as part of the package, are the green back, the brown
cap, the black facial mask, the yellowish breast, and the white throat. That's
7 colors. Additionally, there are the pink legs.
The Fairy Pitta is not an easy bird to see. A few (just a few),
assumedly less now, come to southern Japan, very locally, in the late spring
to breed. The rare species also breeds, also locally, in Korea and China,
including Taiwan. It winters in Borneo (where it is hard to find). As a
migrant, it occurs in central Annam.
In Japan, there is but a narrow window of just over a week (in late May
& early June) when there's a better chance to see it. What helps is
that in early morning (mostly), it calls. When it does so, proclaiming
it territory, from among the leaves of trees, it can be difficult to find. But
when it feeds, on worms and the like, it's on the ground. Then, if one is
fortunate, one can get a from a glimpse to a fairly good look.
During a full-day we spent in the forest of the pitta, over a weekend, there
were many (over a hundred) Japanese birders on the trails, all hoping
to be pitta-watchers. Some were. Many weren't, even though they tried. Some of
the pitta-seekers were lucky enough to snap a photo or two. Most who saw the
bird saw it quickly.
Late in the afternoon (presumably too late), we persisted in our effort
to see the bird, after all of the Japanese birders had left. All of a sudden,
from not that far away, the bird called. In response, I whistled a similar
sound. The bird responded. We vocalized, back and forth, five times, until,
wow, the bird flew in to the forest floor, just feet from us. And it stayed
there for 10 minutes! With its head attentively up, and then, after a short
while, the spectacular bird walked about on the ground. We saw it from every
angle, and we saw every color - all 8 of them!
It has been said by many that the most beautiful bird in the world is the
Resplendent Quetzal of Central America. Yes, it's true that the quetzal is
beautiful and spectacular. But, of all the birds in Japan (and there certainly
are some nice ones), the Fairy Pitta is the most beautiful. Granted, if one
were to see any of the pittas of southeast Asia, they're all beautiful. But,
even so, it can also be said that when one looked at the Fairy Pitta,
as we did that afternoon, it was, at that time, the "most beautiful bird
in the world".
We'll be going to Japan again in the Spring of '06, in May, with about the
same itinerary as we did in '05. The dates are May 6-23.
Also in 2006, our annual Winter Birding Tour in Japan will be conducted in
January/February. That tour will be in Honshu, Hokkaido, and Kyushu, with an
optional extension to Amami and Okinawa. Bird highlights will include Eagles
(both Steller's and White-tailed Sea-Eagles), Cranes
(with as many as 7 species possible), and the large & rare Blakiston's
Fish-Owl.
![]()
Japan Winter
Birding Tour
(to Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, Amami, & Okinawa)
January-February 2005 (with
some notes relating to the previous tour in December 2004)

Flying Japanese Crane,
or "Tancho",
(photographed during FONT Feb '05 Japan Tour)
Japanese,
or Red-crowned , Cranes in Hokkaido, Japan
(photographed during FONT Feb '05 Japan Tour )

White-naped
Crane in Kyushu, Japan
(photographed during FONT Feb '05 Japan Tour)
Okinawa is one of the southernmost Japanese islands. Most of it is heavily populated, especially the southern and central portions. But the northern part of the island is not. And it was in that area, just over 20 years ago, that a bird became newly-known to science. That bird, with its striking pattern of black, white, and brown, and a bright red bill and red legs, spends most of its time on the ground, and in dense undercover. That bird, not known to science prior to 1981, is the Okinawa Rail.
That northern region of northern Okinawa has been known for years (and for years before 1981) as the only place in the world for one of the rarest birds in the world - the Pryer's (or Okinawa) Woodpecker. It was very close to extinction in the 1930's. Today, its population is still low. Estimates during recent years have ranged from 40 to 100 birds.
So, when we've done FONT birding tours in Okinawa, since the early 1990's, the two top targets have been, of course, the rare woodpecker and the rather newly-discovered rail.
The Pryer's Woodpecker we've seen during all of our Okinawa tours, although sometimes fleetingly and other times leisurely.
But the Okinawa Rail has,
at times, proven to be elusive. It is, after all, a very shy bird. And, there's
a reason why it wasn't known to ornithology until recently.
Oh yes, we have seen it over the
years, in various ways. Sometimes, quickly, as it dashed across a path or a
lightly-traveled small road. Overall, hearing it (at dawn, dusk, and after dark)
has been easy. Seeing it has been hard.
A couple years ago, during one of our tours, we met a young lady in that part of Okinawa, who told us that she routinely saw the bird (that she called by its local name, "Agachi Kumira") as she walked to work in the morning. As unbelievable as that seemed, we went the following morning, to the area along the road that she suggested, and, wow, we saw maybe 10 of them, as we stayed quietly in our vehicle. The birds were walking along the side of the road, by the edge of the tall grass.
During our Feb '05 Okinawa tour, we were ready to see the Okinawa Rail again. This time, we learned from a man, of a place, an opening in a small field of otherwise tall grass, surrounded by brush, where he said the rail could appear. The first time when we went there to the edge of the field, and sat in our vehicle, it did not. We gave it a while, but no rail.
However, later in the day, we went back, and repeated our approach of sitting quietly, looking, and waiting. None of those things did we have to do for long. Within moments, at the edge of the grass, there it was, the Okinawa Rail! This normally-shy bird then walked out onto the low grass, to give a totally unobstructed view! It was in no hurry, as it either just stood, or walked slowly about. It even, at one point, walked directly toward our vehicle, to become too close (yes, too close!) for those on the opposite side to see it. Then, it drifted back, still not in a hurry. We were having a look of a life-time at a bird normally so hard to see. During all this, of course, photos were being taken. One of our tour participants, with his digital camera, got as many as 140 shots of the bird! Incredible. Here, now, is one of those many (140) photographs of this attractive and usually very shy bird, with an ornithological history of only just over 20 years.

Our group of tour participants
in Japan was kind of interesting as to where they came from. The person who took
the 140 photos of the rail was from England (of course!). Others on the tour
were from Austria and the Netherlands. Another person scheduled to be with us
would have been from Guernsey, but he couldn't come due to a family illness. And
the two people who were with us from Texas were not with "tall hats"
and a drawl. No, they had previously resided in Canada, and prior to that, they
were from Northern Ireland.
And so it was that when, at the appropriate time during the tour, I mentioned
that there was a "Super Bowl" going on in the States, with the
Philadelphia Eagles, no one was interested. It wasn't Philadelphia (or New
England) that no one cared about, Rather, it was just that it was an American
game!
Most of the people that we encountered throughout our tour were Japanese, endemic to Japan. As were some of the birds, entitled "Japanese" that is. During the first part of the tour, for example, in the hills of Honshu, we saw Japanese Accentor, Japanese Grosbeak, and Japanese Green Woodpecker. All nice to see, Two of them, endemic to Japan. The grosbeak also occurs in eastern mainland Asia.
The Pryer's Woodpecker and Okinawa Rail were not the only two rare birds that we saw in Japan. Others included the very rare Black-faced Spoonbill, the Steller's Sea-Eagle, the big and rare Blakiston's Fish-Owl, the Amami Woodcock, and cranes. Among the 6 species of cranes that we saw, those classified as rarities were the Red-crowned (or Japanese) Crane, and the White-naped, and the Hooded Cranes.
Actually, regarding cranes, there was something unusual during our February '05 tour. Normally, we've seen the Red-crowned Crane only on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido (where there is a resident population). But, this time, we saw one (from the Manchurian population) on the southern island of Kyushu, where it was wintering with the White-naped and Hooded Cranes. It was the first such occurrence there in 37 years! (Incidentally, we've been doing tours to Japan to see the cranes for 14 years.)
A comment needs to be made regarding one of the rarities just mentioned, the Blakiston's Fish-Owl, one of the rarest, and one of the largest owls in the world. In February '05, we saw two. And that kept the streak going. We've seen Blakiston's Fish-Owls during all 16 of our winter birding tours in Hokkaido.
There is now a new, and
informative, feature elsewhere in our website entitled "Rare
Birds of Japan", relating to birds that have been mentioned
here, and others.
Whether you've seen the birds or not (or whether or not you ever will), it's
interesting reading. And particularly so, in the "further notes"
section, are the narratives regarding the Short-tailed Albatross (a bird
that came back from very brink of extinction), the Siberian Crane (one of
the most threatened of all birds), and the Blakiston's Fish-Owl (one of
the most mysterious of birds, as it lives secretly in a remote area).
Also new in our website, there's another feature that's really worth a look.
It's a "Photographic
Sampling of Japanese Culture & Scenery", a series of
photos taken by one of the Canadian participants on our December 2004 Japan
tour. The photographs are not only beautiful, but quite interesting.
That December '04 birding tour was another very good one for birds. Some of the highlights were on the southern island of Kyushu, where between 2 and 3 thousand exquisite Mandarin Ducks were seen, and where we had a good look at the Copper Pheasant (a Japanese endemic that can be hard to see!)
During the most-recent February '05, we went where that pheasant was. No, we didn't see it, but we did see, overhead, 3 Mountain (or Hodgson's) Hawk-Eagles. Two were soaring together in the blue sky, and then perched in trees, where they could be viewed in scopes. Another (the third) was seen later.
During the December '04 Japan tour, in addition to those birds just noted here, all of the rarities mentioned above were seen. That is, except for the Pryer's Woodpecker and Okinawa Rail, as that tour did not go to Okinawa.
Here's the list of our "top birds" during the January-February 2005 FONT birding tour in Japan, as voted by the participants:
1 - OKINAWA RAIL
2 - Steller's Sea-Eagle
3 - Pallas' Rosefinch
4 - Ryukyu Robin
5 - Grey Bunting
6 - Japanese Accentor
7 - White-naped Crane
8 - Blakiston's Fish-Owl
9 - Lidth's Jay
10 - Japanese Grosbeak
11 - Asian Rosy Finch
12 - Mountain (or Hodgson's) Hawk-Eagle
13 - Green Pheasant
14 - Grey-headed Lapwing
15 - Crested Kingfisher
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Japan Late
Fall/Early Winter Birding Tour
(to Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, & Amami)
December 2004
This tour (our 23rd birding tour in
Japan) was a good one, with lots of nice birds, and some wonderful culture
and scenery, in a land very different for most of us. We went to the Japanese
islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Amami.
Between Honshu & Hokkaido, on the
western side of the northern Pacific Ocean,
on November 30th, overnight pelagic trip, onboard a large ferry.
During our Japanese tours, over a dozen years, we've done about 15 such ferry-pelagics,
mostly in January, but also in May, June, November, and December.
This time, there were no albatrosses (Laysan
is nearly always seen, and both Black-footed and Short-tailed have also been),
but there were a number of SEABIRDS.
The most common, this time, was the Black-legged Kittiwake. They occurred
all-day. In all, there were thousands . Other Gulls included Slaty-backed,
Glaucous-winged, Black-tailed , and Vega.
Pomarine Jaegers were with us throughout the day.
In one area, there was a nice number of Shearwaters, mostly Streaked,
but also Short-tailed.. Other oceanic birds were: Northern Fulmar,
Fork-tailed Storm-Petrel, Red-necked Phalarope, Pacifc Loon, and
both Pelagic and Temminck's Cormorants.
Alcids were the Rhinoceros Auklet and Ancient Murrelet.
During another pelagic trip, along that ferry-route earlier this year, in
Such birding at sea is always with the unexpected. It's fun, and particularly pleasant, whether the ocean be either calm or rough, on such a large ferry in the western Pacific.
There is now a new, and
informative, feature elsewhere in our website entitled "Rare
Birds of Japan", relating to birds that have been mentioned
here, and others.
Whether you've seen the birds or not (or whether or not you ever will), it's
interesting reading. And particularly so, in the "further notes"
section, are the narratives regarding the Short-tailed Albatross (a
bird that came back from very brink of extinction), the Siberian Crane
(one of the most threatened of all birds), and the Blakiston's
Fish-Owl (one of the most mysterious of birds, as it lives secretly in a
remote area).
Also new in our website, there's another feature that's really worth a look.
It's a "Photographic
Sampling of Japanese Culture & Scenery", a series of
photos taken by one of the Canadian participants on our December 2004 Japan
tour. The photographs are not only beautiful, but quite interesting.
The December '04 tour was, as noted above, a very good one for birds. Some of the highlights were on the southern island of Kyushu, where between 2 and 3 thousand exquisite Mandarin Ducks were seen, and where we had a good look at the Copper Pheasant (a Japanese endemic that can be hard to see!)
During the December '04 Japan tour, many of the rarities that we had hoped to see were. Among those, with information in the file mentioned above, the "Rare Birds of Japan" were: Amami Thrush, Black-faced Spoonbill, Blakiston's Fish-Owl, Steller's Sea-Eagle, Red-crowned Crane, White-naped Crane, Hooded Crane, Amami Woodcock, Lidth's Jay, White-tailed Eagle, Copper Pheasant, and Ryukyu Robin.
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May 2004 - Spring Birding in Central Japan: Honshu, including Hegura Island
The following account written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour.
This was our 22nd FONT birding tour in Japan. 14 have been in the winter, and the tour just done was our 8th in the spring.
And it was our 3rd tour with a visit to a most intriguing place, the tiny Hegura Island in the Sea of Japan - one of the best places anywhere to experience and enjoy a spring migration of birds.
That island, Hegura, certainly is small. It's less than 1 kilometer wide and less than 2 kilometers long. One can walk the path around the entire coastline of the island in less than an hour.

Some people live on that small island. But not many, about 50. In the morning, the women of Hegura dive for seaweed. Later in the day, if sunny, they put it out to dry. Men go out on boats to fish.
There was a small store on the island. But no longer. When I asked a young Japanese girl who spoke some English, how, for example, she would buy food or other items, she told me she would order such things on the internet, and they would be brought on the ferry, from the small city of Wajima, about two hours away by boat.
There is a school on the island, with an enrollment of 5 students.
Fortunately, something that does exist on the island is a small inn, where visitors, such as us, can sleep Japanese-style on the floor, and where meals, Japanese-style, can be eaten. Assorted seafood, along with locally-grown seaweed, locally-grown vegetables, and noodles and rice are served. But the place is great for 2 or 3 days not just to experience some rural Japanese living, but to have, virtually outside the door, some truly tremendous birding during spring migration.
A bit more can be said about the island, off the west coast of Japan, and east of Korea and south of Manchuria. Birds that pass through Hegura, arriving either at night or by day, include not only those that travel north through Japan, but also some species more common in those other lands of Korea and Manchuria.
The tallest structure on the island is a white lighthouse, located near a small woodlot, where the traveling birds stop to rest. The pines and other short trees and bushes, are for a while the haunts of migrating birds. Others occur in such places as a field of tall grass, a small garden, the playground of the school, or in the debris that may be strewn by the buildings. Birds can be anywhere. Along the path that encircles the island, there are about six shrines by the sea, near the mostly rocky coastline. Birds of various kinds are to be found in that setting, in the rocks or by the pools.
The ferry goes once a day, each direction, between Wajima and Hergura Island, in the morning to the island, late in the afternoon from it. During the ferry-rides, there can be nice seabirding. In the spring, the endemic alcid, known in English as the Japanese Murrelet, and in Japanese as the "Kanmuri-umisuzume", can be seen. "Umisuzume" is a Japanese word meaning "sea sparrow". Another alcid in those waters is the Rhinoceros Auklet. Streaked Shearwaters can be seen in large numbers from the ferry, as can Red-necked Phalaropes. On our way to Hegura this time, there was a Red Phalarope or two among the flocks of Red-necked. On our way from Hegura, we went through an area with swarms of Streaked Shearwaters. There were hundreds of them flying about near the boat.
On the island itself, during our 3-day visit that was part of the Spring '04 FONT Japanese birding tour, about a hundred species were found. In that total, there were landbirds (many), shorebirds and waterbirds. Probably more species, and more individual birds, can be found on Hegura during a good day or two in May than maybe anywhere else in Japan. And with the strong probability of rarities, there's the potential for more birding excitement in the spring on Hegura than at any other Japanese locale.
For that reason, not just the birds but Japanese birders migrate to Hegura in the spring en mass. Again of us, this time on Hegura as during our previous times, we mingled with a number of Japanese birders, even with our differences in language and culture notwithstanding. Our experience in a place so far away from our homes, and so different than where we live, will always be remembered.
Another experience that's fascinating, no matter where it is in the world, is to be in the midst of a major bird migration. It can be done at various particular spots in the world, some of which are well-known such as Point Pelee in Canada in the spring, Cape May in the eastern US and Falsterbo in southern Sweden, both in the fall. But the phenomenon on Hegura Island off Japan in the spring, with the right conditions, is about as good as it gets.
The "bird island" of Hegura can be for a birder a bit like a "fantasy island". It's a place where one can become immersed in birds. It's also a place so very far removed from our everyday lives, without hustle or bustle. Just to relate in perspective how special a place Hegura can be to a Japanese birder, we met some who found it worthwhile to travel for more than a day in each direction, between their homes and Hegura, in order to spend even just a few hours on the island between the ferry-arrival in the morning and the ferry-departure in the afternoon.
Also interesting to think about is how much time the migrating birds spend on the island. Some birds seem to stay more than a day. Others seem to be island-bound just a short time. Some Hobbies and Peregrines that appeared to arrive during an afternoon, to perch in pine trees and on a communications tower, were gone the next morning. During one day, Cuckoos heard calling were mostly Oriental. The following day, the sound of the Common Cuckoos was more predominant.
One thing that's especially good about birding on Hegura is that birds that can elsewhere be notorious skulkers are often more readily seen. In that category, on Hegura in the spring, are birds such as the shy Japanese Robin (mostly in late-April), the Siberian Blue Robin (mostly in early to mid-May), and the White's Ground Thrush (in April & May).
Routine spring-time migrants on Hegura, come from the southeast Asian tropics and continue onward to their northern breeding grounds. Hence, the adjective "Siberian" occurs more than once. Such birds include the Siberian Rubythroat, Siberian Stonechat, and the Siberian Thrush (in addition to the Siberian Blue Robin, already mentioned). Others include the Yellow-breasted Bunting and the Blue-and-white Flycatcher, with males of both bright and colorful.
Already mentioned, in regard to Hegura, has been aspect of birds occurring that are more commonly seen on the Asian mainland than they are otherwise in Japan. Birds in that category during our '04 tour included the Swinhoe's Robin, Mugimaki Flycatcher, Tricolored Flycatcher, Black-naped Oriole, Tristram's Bunting, and Chestnut Bunting. Trevor, in our group, who had migrated from Australia to join us, was lucky to see all of these. Lucky, yes, but the birds were due as much to his persistence, as he walked almost as much as one could in Australia (in order to be "at the right place at the right time").
During one of our days on Hegura in May '04, Mugimaki Flycatchers were actually common. That Japanese name notwithstanding, the species is normally a rarity in Japan.
In one area on the island, in brush by a garden, there were over a half-dozen Chestnut Buntings, with an assortment of buntings of other kinds. None of them were more attractive than the male Chestnut (its coloration chestnut and yellow). To go where the Chestnut Bunting would be seen in its attractive attire on its breeding grounds, one would go to the region of Manchuria and eastern Siberia.
Some mostly bright-yellow Black-naped Orioles were seen during our tour. They also breed in Manchuria, as well as in Korea and China.
To see such birds as the bunting and the oriole and other of Asia on the island less than a kilometer wide certainly involves a lot less travel would be required elsewhere.
Some Old World Flycatchers were particularly abundant for us on Hegura in mid-May '04. In addition to the Blue-and-white (the male when low in a bush is a beauty), and the rare Tricolored and the Mugimaki, there were others in the flycatcher tribe the Asian Brown, the Sooty (or Dark-sided), the Gray-streaked, and the Narcissus, the last of these a particularly attractive Japanese bird. They don't come much more attractive.

Old World Warblers are quite different than those of the New World. While the latter are considerably more colorful, the former can be more challenging to ID. But that's not as hard to do when one flies into a window of the inn where we stayed, and then stunned, it can be held in the hand - as it was in the hand of Ellen from Massachusetts. That Arctic Warbler (the borealis subspecies, with the yellowish vent) did recover. A short while after its colliding with the window, it was well to fly away - it would have a long way yet to go to the northern hinterlands of Siberia. Other migrating warblers included the Hume's (formerly Yellow-browed), the Sikhalin (formerly Pale-legged) and the Eastern Crowned. The latter was the most common, but any of them could be found in any tree or bush.
One of the 3 species of Old World Cuckoos that we saw, the Lesser, was seen sitting on a rock by the sea, as it rested before it would continue on its way.
3 species of Shrikes were seen during our '04 tour on Hegura. The Bull-headed is common throughout much of Japan, but there were also fine looks at the Tiger (or Thick-billed) Shrike, and the Brown. The latter is a much more attractive bird than its name implies.
Among the Thrushes we saw on Hegura, again the name Brown is not quite enough for that bird with a reddish breast that rather resembles an American Robin. Other thrushes during the tour included the Dusky, the Eye-browed, the Pale (another weak name), and the Japanese Grey, in addition to the Siberian and White's Ground Thrush already mentioned. All of these were migrants on the island. The Blue Rock Thrush (with a chestnut belly) is a resident.
A small group of Ashy Minivets arrived on the island, appearing in low trees by the inn, just as we were about to go for the ferry to leave the island. How good it was for such nice birds to come right to us as we had just about run out of time (and as our weary feet were about to make their one last island-walk to the dock).
One last, interesting thing about the birds of Hegura. A number of the birds most common on the main Japanese islands, such as Honshu, are absent, or nearly so, on Hegura. There are no Tree Sparrows or Grey Starlings. Bulbuls and White-eyes are few and far between. There are some crows, but not many. Woodpeckers and tits do not occur. Nor do birds such as the Japanese Wagtail (which is common only a couple hours away) or the Japanese Green Pheasant. All the birds noted in this paragraph are among the most common throughout much of Japan. For example, in virtually every Japanese city, Eurasian Tree Sparrows are abundant. (It's an interesting side-note that there are no House Sparrows anywhere in Japan. Yes, birds are different there on the other side of the world.)
Cumulatively, 127 species of birds have been seen during the 3 FONT tours on Hegura Island. About a hundred species were seen in '04. A cumulative list of the birds on Hegura during our tours can be readily found from the home-page of our web-site www.focusonnature.com
A list of the Hegura birds during our May '04 follows here:
1 - Streaked Shearwater (offshore)
2 - Temminck's (or Japanese) Cormorant
3 - Pelagic Cormorant
4 - Black-crowned Night-Heron
5 - Cattle Egret
6 - Little Egret
7 - Intermediate Egret
8 - Great Egret
9 - Grey Heron
10 - Pacific Reef-Heron (both light & dark morphs)
11 - Eurasian Wigeon
12 - Spot-billed Duck
13 - Red-breasted Merganser (1 bird, out of season)
14 - Black (-eared) Kite
15 - Osprey
16 - Northern Marsh-Harrier (the far-eastern subspecies)
17 - Hen Harrier (no longer considered conspecific with the Northern Harrier of
North America)
18 - Japanese (or Lesser) Sparrowhawk
19 - Eurasian Hobby
20 - Peregrine Falcon
21 - Moorhen (or Common Gallinule)
22 - Mongolian Plover (or Lesser Sandplover)
23 - Pacific Golden Plover
24 - Red (or Rufous) -necked Stint
25 - (Ruddy) Turnstone
26 - Common Snipe (no longer considered conspecific with what's now the Wilson's
Snipe of North America)
27 - probable Latham's (or Japanese) Snipe
28 - Common Greenshank
29 - Common Sandpiper
30 - Grey-tailed (or Polynesian) Tattler
31 - Red-necked Phalarope (seen from the ferry)
32 - Red (or Grey) Phalarope (seen from the ferry)
33 - Black-tailed Gull
34 - Vega (form of the Herring) Gull
35 - Slaty-backed Gull
36 - Japanese Murrelet (seen from the ferry)
37 - Feral Pigeon
38 - Rufous (or Oriental) Turtle-Dove
39 - Japanese (or Black) Wood-Pigeon
40 - Common Cuckoo
41 - Oriental (or Himalayan) Cuckoo
42 - Lesser Cuckoo
43 - Japanese (formerly part of Collared) Scops-Owl
44 - a swift with 3 English names, either Pacific, or White-rumped, or
Fork-tailed Swift
45 - Eurasian Kingfisher
46 - (Barn) Swallow
47 - Bank Swallow (or Sand Martin)
48 - Red-rumped Swallow
49 - Olive-backed Pipit (has also been called Indian Tree Pipit)
50 - Yellow Wagtail (the subspecies simillima)
51 - Grey Wagtail
52 - Black-backed Wagtail
53 - Brown-eared Bulbul
54 - Ashy Minivet
55 - Swinhoe's (or Rufous-tailed) Robin
56 - Siberian Blue Robin
57 - Siberian Rubythroat
58 - Daurian Redstart
59 - Siberian Stonechat
60 - Blue Rock Thrush (red-bellied form)
61 - White's (or Scaly) Ground Thrush
62 - Siberian (Ground) Thrush
63 - Brown (or Red-bellied) Thrush
64 - Pale Thrush
65 - Eye-browed (or Grey-headed) Thrush
66 - Dusky Thrush
67 - (Japanese) Grey Thrush
68 - Japanese Bush Warbler
69 - Eastern (or Oriental) Great Reed Warbler
70 - Black-browed (or Schenk's) Reed Warbler
71 - Eastern Crowned (Willow-, or Leaf-) Warbler
72 - Sikhalin (or Pale-legged) (Willow-, or Leaf-) Warbler
73 - Hume's (has been part of Yellow-browed) Warbler
74 - Arctic Warbler (subspecies borealis)
75 - Blue-and-white Flycatcher
76 - Asian Brown Flycatcher
77 - Sooty (or Dark-sided) Flycatcher
78 - Grey-spotted (or -streaked) Flycatcher
79 - Mugimaki Flycatcher
80 - Narcissus Flycatcher
81 - Tricolored (or Yellow-rumped) Flycatcher
82 - Japanese White-eye
83 - Bull-headed Shrike
84 - Brown Shrike
85 - Tiger (or Thick-billed) Shrike
86 - Carrion Crow
87 - Large-billed Crow
88 - Red (or Violet) -cheeked Myna
89 - Black-naped Oriole
90 - Oriental (or Grey-capped) Greenfinch
91 - Eurasian Siskin
92 - Eurasian Bullfinch
93 - Japanese Grosbeak
94 - Hawfinch
95 - (Japanese) Grey Bunting
96 - Black-faced Bunting
97 - (Japanese) Yellow Bunting
98 - Yellow-breasted Bunting
99 - Chestnut Bunting
100 - Rustic Bunting
101 - Tristram's Bunting
There were also birds, of course, seen elsewhere during our May '04 Japan Spring Birding Tour, other than on Hegura.
Among the best were these:
Along the west coast of Japan, in some trees that were budding, birds, mostly Bulbuls were feeding. But among them were some absolutely beautiful Waxwings, Bohemian Waxwings, that occur in Japan as wanderers mostly in the winter. Japanese Waxwings also winter in Japan, but our birds were with red and white on the wings and yellow on the tails.
On a small pond in central Honshu, there was another species still present that's more apt to be a Japanese winter visitor. There was a pair of Smews, a red-headed female, and a brilliantly patterned black-and-white male.
Shorebirds (called waders in the Old World) were enjoyed in eastern Honshu, with many, during their northward migration, in fine breeding plumage. Particularly nice, in an area of mudflats, were Bar-tailed Godwits, Mongolian Plovers, and Great Knot.

In flooded rice-fields, there were many to see including Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Curlew Sandpiper, Red-necked Stint, Dunlin, Terek Sandpiper, Whimbrel, Pacific Golden Plover, Snipe, Ruddy Turnstone, and Grey-tailed Tattler. Such traveling shorebirds are nice to see anywhere in the world that they happen to be, especially when in their nuptial attire.
In a reedy marshland, we saw two specialties the Japanese Reed Bunting as it sang its song, and the Japanese Marsh Warbler as it did its aerial display. In the Birdlife International publication, "Threatened Birds of the World", both of these rare & localized Japanese breeders have alternate names the Ochre-rumped Bunting and the Marsh Grassbird. To Japanese birders, they're known, respectively, as ""Ko-jurin" and "O-sekka".
Nearby, another avian denizen of the Japanese marshes was making its loud racket, the Oriental Great Reed Warbler, called the "O-yoshikiri" in Japanese. Its noisy calls were incessant, in whatever language.
Having given somewhat of an image of our most-recent spring birding tour in Japan, mention should be made that we'll be going to Japan to bird again
Later this year, from November 28 to December 12, for winter-time birds on the Japanese islands of Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Amami. Birds will include winter specialties such as cranes (up to 7 species), two species of sea-eagles (the Steller's and the White-tailed), the rare (and big) Blakiston's Fish-Owl, and endemics including the colorful Lidth's Jay, restricted to the island of Amami. Also on that island, a good assortment of shorebirds is likely.
There's still some room on this tour. Please contact us if you're interested.
And next year, from May 14 to 31, when again we'll visit that small island that's a magnet for birds, Hegura. Other islands will be visited as well Amami, Okinawa (where there's an endemic rail that's only been known to science for a couple decades, and an endemic woodpecker that may well be the rarest in the world). And also, on the island of Kyushu, we'll go for the most colorful of Japanese birds, the Fairy Pitta.
Information about both of these upcoming Japanese birding tours is elsewhere in this web-site.
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January
2004 - Winter Birding on Honshu &, Hokkaido.
The following account written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour.
In January 2004, we conducted out 21st birding tour in Japan. Once again, it was our annual winter birding tour
that we've been done since 1992. Each year, during the tour, there's been a pelagic trip onboard an overnight ferry on the Pacific from Honshu north to Hokkaido.Our day on the ferry this year, January 14th, was a more-than-blustery one, with gale-force winds at sea. The waves reached more than 20-feet. However, the ferry on which we rode was a very big vessel, and stable even with the conditions. Most places, to have a pelagic trip on such a day would not be possible, as the surface of that "not-so-Pacific" ocean was virtually covered with whitecaps. Thus, it was for us an interesting opportunity to observe birds over an ocean in such strong weather.
The ferry, during part of the trip, was only a couple miles offshore from the rugged, hilly northern coast of
Honshu (the main Japanese island). That region of the island is nearly unpopulated (in contrast with other places, to the south, that are filled with people).The next day we were on land, on the very wintry northern Japanese island of
Hokkaido, where our tremendous birding continued in the snowy land with cranes, eagles, and an owl.The next day, during our Japan 2004 tour, we saw about a hundred eagles along the eastern Hokkaido coast. They were about evenly divided between White-tailed and Steller's Sea-Eagles. The latter, absolutely spectacular birds to see.
Another bird that eats fish ended that great January day for us on Hokkaido. It was another bird spectacular to see, the Blakiston's Fish-Owl. We saw 3 of them, very well. We were looking at their orange eyes, within an hour after the orange ball of the sun was about to set. The Blakiston's Fish-Owl is among the largest and the rarest of the world's owls.
The snow in Hokkaido has already
been mentioned. During our '04 tour , scenes of snow in the trees were
exceptionally beautiful, as was, at a large mostly-frozen lake, another winter
spectacle of birds. Flocks of Whooper Swans were there, in the mist that
rose from the water. They called loudly as together they performed a variety of
gyrations.
The next day, after an airplane flight and a bullet-train ride, we were, back on
the main Japanese island of Honshu, at a
very big lake with many waterfowl. Falcated Teal, Spot-billed Ducks,
Tufted Ducks, Pintails, and Pochards were common. Eurasian Wigeon were
abundant. But the nicest flock was that of a tight group of mergansers
fishing above where there was apparently a tight school of fish beneath the
surface. Some of the flock were Goosanders (known in North America as Common
Mergansers). Others in it were Smews (a merganser
that does not normally occur in North America). Many of the Smews
were males, with their striking white-and-black plumage. As many as 50 Smews
were together, diving as they fed on the fish.
Probably the "duck of the day" was one on a small nearby pond, a drake
Baikal Teal. At that small pond, Common Teal were that. There were
hundreds. But there was only one Baikal, which was enough to make us
happy. The Baikal Teal of Asia is rare and threatened species.
A day or so later, on the
southernmost of the main Japanese islands, Kyushu,
we had, in the afternoon, yet another waterfowl spectacle. In a valley in
a particularly rugged area of the island with steep rocky gorges, there were Mandarin
Ducks by the hundreds. The water of the river was close to an emerald green.
The colorful plumages of the male Mandarins were extravagant. The wild
Mandarins were in scattered flocks along the river where it was slow-flowing. Of
all the masses of the waterfowl we saw during our '04 tour, these masses of
Mandarins in Kyushu were by far the most wary. One simply could not get close to
them, as one would, along the road, get out of the car. "City park
ducks" these were not.
When they were on the water (and we could observe them nicely in scopes),
the Mandarins were quite vocal. In this strikingly beautiful, and otherwise
quiet, setting in Japan, it was for us a wonderful experience. At the end of the
day, the Mandarins flew up high in flocks to go roost in trees (as their
counterparts in North America, Wood Ducks do.)
Along that river valley, where the water was more fast-flowing, there were Brown
(or Pallas') Dippers, Grey Wagtails, and Crested
Kingfishers. In bushes, there were Yellow-throated Buntings.
Birds have just been mentioned along one particular river in Kyushu. On every
river on that island, in '04, especially near the sea, there were many ducks
(other than Mandarins). The most numerous were Wigeon (all Eurasian,
no American).
Among gulls along the Kyushu coast during our tour, the best was the rare
Saunder's Gull, a dainty gull that breeds nearly exclusively in China (only
sporadically on the west coast of Korea). When we visit Okinawa in the
winter, we see a few. On Kyushu, over the years, we've seen less.
But it's the cranes that are the primary avian attraction on Kyushu in
the winter. Nearly the entire global population of Hooded Cranes (5,000
or so birds) winter there, as does a high proportion of the world's White-naped
Cranes (about 2,500 birds). Their congregation from late-November
thru mid-February is a true spectacle. Among them, each year, there are some
crane vagrants. In '04, we saw 3 Common, or Eurasian, Cranes, a
rare Siberian White Crane, and 1 Sandhill Crane (the last of
these in Japanese is called "Kanada-zuru", with "zuru" their
word for "crane"). (Actually, although many Sandhills
nest in Canada, some do so in Siberia. Most of them winter in North America
south to Mexico. Those seen in Japan annually, usually 1 or 2, probably come
from Siberia.) Most of the many Hooded Cranes breed in Siberia, as do
the Common Cranes (some Hooded-Common hybrids occur in
Japan in the winter). The White-naped Crane nests mostly in northern
China, with some in Mongolia. The rare Siberian White Crane nests in
far-northern Siberia, with most wintering in China.
Some winters there are as many as 7 species of cranes in Japan. In 2004, there
were 6, and we saw them all: the Hooded, White-naped, Siberian, Common,
and Sandhill in Kyushu, and the Red-crowned (or Japanese) Crane,
as noted earlier, in Hokkaido.
When we first arrived in the area of the cranes in southern Kyushu, an area
where nearby there are citrus groves, there was, during January 21, '04, snow!
At first, during the blinding snow, we could not hardly see the cranes. We could
hear them. We learned through a Japanese translator with us that it was the
first such snowfall in that lowland area in 40 years (or so)! There are no
snow-plows or snow-shovels in that part of Japan. People were
"shoveling" with cardboard. A couple hours and about 4 inches of snow
after our arrival, the sun broke through for a while, and somehow, during about
an hour or so, we saw all 5 of the crane species present. We were most fortunate
to have a close and very good look at the Siberian White Crane, as it fed
in a field with the White-naped and Hooded.
During our last morning of the tour, back on Honshu,
in the area of shrines and temples in Narita (northeast of Tokyo), we
saw, during the final act before the curtain closed at the nearby airport, a
last nice assortment of Japanese birds. In the woods and by ponds and a stream,
there were: a pair of Japanese Wagtails walking on thin ice, a flock of
two of colorful Varied Tits and Japanese White-eyes, a large
flock, higher in the trees, of Long-tailed Tits, a Japanese Grey
Bunting on a stone at a shrine, and Pygmy Woodpecker and Great
Tits along with Hawfinches, Pale Thrushes, and Brown-eared Bulbuls.
To and from the shrine, we walked along narrow streets where shop-keepers and
restaurant owners were beginning their days. It was a more than interesting, a
fascinating, walk surrounded by Japanese culture. There were so many things to
be eaten, but not recognized. Among those memorable, however, were chestnuts
roasting in water in small pots. It was a nice last morning for us in Japan.
During our January 2004 Japanese Winter Birding Tour, we had some wonderful
experiences with birds and otherwise, that we'll always remember.
A total of 356 species of birds have cumulatively been seen during FONT tours in
Japan. The fore-mentioned Gyrfalcon, in '04, was number 356. A complete listing
of birds during FONT Japanese tours is in our web-site.
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January
2003 - Winter Birding on Honshu, Hokkaido, & Kyushu,
and Amami & Okinawa
The following account written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour.
During our annual winter birding tour in Japan, January 13-25, 2003, highlights included:
4 Blakiston's Fish-Owls, 2 of them
adults, a juvenile, and a sub-adult.
The species, inhabiting the northern
Japanese island of Hokkaido and eastern Siberia, is one of the rarest of the
world's owls, and one of the largest.
Also in Hokkaido, one evening, we saw a Ural
Owl, well, as it sat on a roadside branch.
Cranes are always a highlight of our Japan winter birding tours. This year, 6 species of cranes were wintering in Japan, and we saw them all the beautiful Red-crowned Cranes displaying on the snow, and the masses of Hooded and White-naped Cranes, along with a couple Common Cranes, a Sandhill Crane, and a Demoiselle Crane.
Also exciting during our Japan tours in winter are Eagles both Steller's and White-tailed, along the Hokkaido seacoast.
Waterfowl during the tour that are always great to see included exquisite Mandarin Ducks, gaudy Harlequin Ducks, attractive Smews and Falcated Ducks, and a fine male Baikal Teal. Another rarity, the Scaly-sided Merganser, was also seen.
Wonderous white Whooper Swans were along the edge of a frozen Hokkaido lake, giving their loud calls, as a couple black Ravens were calling overhead as they flew by.
From the offshore ferry from Honshu to Hokkaido, some Laysan Albatrosses were seen. Also Shearwaters (Streaked and Short-tailed), Fulmars and Kittiwakes. Alcids included both Common and Thick-billed Murres, Ancient Murrelet, and Least Auklet. The last of these, as well as Spectacled Guillemot, were also seen from shore in Hokkaido.
A couple rarities seen during the Kyushu portion of the tour were the Black-faced Spoonbill and Saunder's Gull.
The dapper Yellow-throated Bunting was
among an assortment of buntings, and other landbirds.
Bramblings, en masse, made an
interesting observation. A tight flock of over a thousand was seen swirling
about in flight, and then alighting by us on the ground.
As our second Japan tour, January 24-31,
began on the
southern islands of Amami and Okinawa, a pair of striking Lidth's Jays
(endemic to Amami) was observed, close at hand, as they were gathering nesting
material. Although that jay can be noisy, as they were about us - they were
absolutely silent.
Also seen well during that tour, as they gathered nesting material, were 2
Pryer's Woodpeckers on Okinawa. That species, sometimes called the Okinawa
Woodpecker, is endemic to one region of that island, and is probably the rarest
of the world's woodpeckers (assuming that the Ivory-billed is extinct).
According to Birdlife International, in the early 1990's, the breeding
population was estimated to be less than 80 birds, and the total population
possibly as low as 150 birds. The entire range is less than 600 square
kilometers.
Other rarities in the Nansei Shoto region in southern Japan include the Okinawa
Rail (endemic to Okinawa) and the Amami Woodcock (mostly on the island of
Amami). Both were seen briefly. The rail was heard at dusk. During our Okinawa
tour, prior to this, in May, Okinawa Rails were more readily seen, early in the
morning - about a dozen. The species can be notoriously difficult to see. It was
not known to science until 1981.
Seen very well in Okinawa were 2 other rarities: the Black-faced Spoonbill and
Saunder's Gull, both at a mudflat. There was one spoonbill (of a total
world population of less than 700), and about a half-dozen Saunder's
Gulls. Okinawa is a wintering site for the latter species, which breeds in
eastern China at just a few places (7 colonies in 4 provinces).
Also on the Okinawan mudflat, among other shorebirds, there was a species
"new" for our cumulative bird-list from 20 FONT Japanese tours, number
#355: Two Pied, or Eurasian, Avocets were walking and feeding on
the mud. Beautiful, striking birds!
These were some of the highlights during
our Japan winter tours in 2003.
We'll be going, again, next winter, in
January 2004.
Before that, Japan tours are scheduled, as well, for the Spring of '03, including visits to places for the Pryer's Woodpecker and Okinawa Rail.
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May
2002 - Spring
Birding in Central Japan: Honshu, including Hegura Island
The following account written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour.

Hegura-jima
(pictured above) is a small, very small, island in the Sea of Japan, where there can be a large migration of birds. The island is just over a mile long, and just about half a mile wide. It is located about 35 miles offshore from western Honshu, the main Japanese island.During the FONT 2002 Early-Spring Birding Tour in Japan, we went again to Hegura Island (this time in early May). We visited the island previously during our tour in 2001 (in late April).
Again in 2002, as in 2001, we had some extraordinary birding. This year, among the best of the birds were the Swinhoe's Robin, Mugimaki Flycatcher, Tristram's Bunting, and Dusky Warbler. The most obvious bird on the island, during our stay in 2002, was the attractive Narcissus Flycatcher. Colorful, and tame, they always seemed to be with us.

Narcissus Flycatcher
Also there were Siberian Blue Robin, White's Ground-Thrush, Eye-browed Thrush, Violet-backed Starling, and Yellow-throated Bunting. During the time of our visit, there were always birds about, and Japanese birders with whom we shared our wonderful experience on the island and an exciting phenomenon of bird migration.
Returning from Hegura Island to Honshu, we had with us, during our entire 2-hour ferry ride, Streaked Shearwaters, thousands of them.
Before going to Hegura-jima, on Honshu we observed a noteworthy assortment of migrating shorebirds (or waders), including both Great and Red Knots, thousands of Pacific Golden-Plovers, colorful Mongolian Plovers in breeding plumage, Red-necked Stints in bright breeding plumage as well, and a Broad-billed Sandpiper among Dunlin and Grey-tailed Tattlers, to mention a few of the shorebird species.

Mongolian Plover
Among landbirds on Honshu during the tour were both the Japanese Reed Bunting and Japanese Yellow Bunting (both rare species), breeding Mandarin Ducks, and also colorful Japanese Green Pheasants, and Japanese Grosbeaks. Also among the five assortment of birds found, there was a single (late) male Smew, and a line-up on a branch of 10 young Long-tailed Tits, huddled together, as they were being fed by adults.
The "Top
Birds" as voted by participants after the tour were:
1 - Narcissus Flycatcher
2 - Mugimaki Flycatcher
3 - Tristram's Bunting
4 - Siberian Blue Robin
5 - Long-tailed Tit (a line-up of 10 young on a branch)
6 - Japanese Marsh Warbler
7 - White's Ground-Thrush
8 - Swinhoe's Robin
9 - Brown Dipper
10 - Mongolian Plover
11- Varied Tit
12 - Japanese Green Pheasant
13 - Japanese Green Woodpecker
14 - Broad-billed Sandpiper
15 - Yellow-throated Bunting
16 - Great Knot
17 - Japanese Bush Warbler (singing)
18 - Mandarin Duck
19 - Streaked Shearwater
20 - Japanese Grosbeak
A booklet listing the 353 species of birds that have been found during FONT tours in Japan, noting when and where, is available from FONT. Let us know if you'd like a copy.
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May
2002 - Spring
Birding in Southern Japan: Nansei Shoto (incl Okinawa & Amami) and Kyushu
The following account written by Armas Hill, leader of the tour.
Over the years, FONT has conducted a number of birding tours on the Southern Japanese Island of Okinawa, where among the interesting birds there are 2 endemics to the island the Pryer's Woodpecker and the Okinawa Rail.
The woodpecker is very rare. Assuming the Ivory-billed Woodpecker to be extinct, the Pryer's would be the rarest of the world's woodpeckers, only occurring in a limited area of forest in northern Okinawa. Population estimates have ranged from 40 to 200 birds. During our current tour on the island, as we walked along a trail in a woods by a stream, we found ourselves face-to-face with a Pryer's Woodpecker, bringing food to young in a nest. This was the first of 8 Pryer's Woodpeckers to be seen during the tour. And we heard the young woodpeckers inside the nest cavity.
The Okinawa Rail was only "discovered" in 1981, new to science at that time, although known for years by locals to be in the Yambaru Region of Okinawa. The bird can be very hard to see. Secretive, shy, in the forest or high grass. Thus, it was "unknown" as long as it was. During our tour now in Okinawa, during the early morning of May 16, 2002, we saw a total of 11 Okinawa Rails (and heard another). The birds were seen along a stretch of road, as we moved slowly in our vehicle. At one time, as we remained still on the road, there were 3 rails ahead of us. One, more closely, was feeding on low vegetation along the side of the road. Two were behind it. One of them raised its neck and began to call. On another occasion, as we sat still, an Okinawa Rail was walking along the road edge, just about 15-feet from us. The species is quite attractive, with a bright red bill and legs, a black-and-white barred belly, a mostly black head with a white stripe and red eyes.

Okinawa Rail
Also attractive during our May 2002 tour in Okinawa have been at least 4 Greater Painted-Snipes seen well in a rice paddy (females more colorful as in phalaropes), a Ruddy Crake with 2 black chicks, Ryukyu Robins (at least 20 seen well), and Japanese Paradise Flycatchers. At an estuary, we observed 2 Terek Sandpipers with a flock of Grey-tailed Tattlers.
The "Top
Birds" as voted by participants after the tour were:
1 - Okinawa Rail
2 - Pryer's Woodpecker
3 - Oriental Pratincole
4 - Ruddy Kingfisher
5 - Greater Painted-Snipe
6 - "Owston's" White-backed Woodpecker
7 - Terek Sandpiper
8 - Japanese Paradise-Flycatcher
9 - Narcissus Flycatcher
10 - Ryukyu (formerly part of Narcissus) Flycatcher
11- Grey-faced Buzzard
12 - Japanese Reed Bunting
13 - Ryukyu Robin
14 - Mongolian Plover
15 - Ryukyu Scops-Owl
16 - Japanese Green Pheasant
17 - Sharp-tailed Sandpiper
18 - Little Stint (rare in Japan, seen well)
19 - Azure-winged Magpie
20 - Great Knot
21 - Needle-tailed Swift
22 - Oriental Scops-Owl
23 - Japanese Wagtail
A booklet listing the 353 species of birds that have been found during FONT tours in Japan, noting when and where, is available from FONT. Let us know if you'd like a copy.
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January
2002 - Winter Birding the length of the Country
Tour JA-1: Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu: Jan 15-26
Tour JA-2: Amami, Okinawa: Jan 26-31
with:
Blakiston's Fish-Owl
cranes, eagles, and much more
Written by the leader, Armas Hill, following
the
16th FONT Japanese birding tour.
Bird highlights during the tours were many, ranging from 2 Blakiston's Fish-Owls, close at hand, to 5 rare Pryer's Woodpeckers. There were 7 of the world's 15 species of cranes. There were both of the Eagles of Hokkaido, the White-tailed and the Steller's. Baikal Teal was sought and found. The most Mandarin Ducks for us, ever, were seen. Whooper Swans were enjoyed, calling on water of a cold lake enshrouded in mist. Not just Blakiston's, but other owls provided experiences not to be forgotten. And yet another bird of the night provided quite a show, the rare Amami Woodcock.
As we birded the country of islands, from one end to the other, from cold Hokkaido to warmer Okinawa, each day, being different from the others, had highlights unto itself. Day by day, descriptions follow.
We began in Tokyo on January
15. In the "green island" of trees in the city, at the Meiji
Shrine, we saw our first Varied Tit, Japanese Bush-Warbler, Red-flanked
Bluetail, Dusky Thrush, Japanese Pygmy-Woodpecker, Hawfinch, and a
flock of about 50 Mandarin Ducks. A good way to start. A Sparrowhawk
flew quickly overhead. Large-billed Crows made their assortment of calls.
Earlier in the day, we saw our only Azure-winged Magpies of the tour. The
subway rides to and from the shrine were fun, and enjoyable to see at the shrine
was a wedding. Our first day in Japan was actually a national holiday
("Coming-of-Age Day"), and we saw a number of Japanese ladies in
attractive kimonos.
In the afternoon, at another Tokyo park, we saw our first Kamchatka Gull,
Smew, and numerous other ducks. At night, north of Tokyo, we
boarded a ferry headed for Hokkaido, on which we soundly slept.
During January 16, our pelagic day on the Pacific Ocean, off Honshu, nearly 40 Laysan Albatrosses were tallied. An immature Short-tailed Albatross was seen, but not by all. There were numerous Common and Thick-billed Murres. As the ferry plowed north, all of these murres (or guillemots as they are otherwise known), were apparently unable to fly, as they scurried away from us on the water. Other alcids included: Ancient Murrelet, Crested Auklet, and Tufted Puffin. Kittiwakes were plentiful. Northern Fur Seals were seen floating on the surface of the ocean.
Onshore this evening, nestled away in the woods of Hokkaido, we enjoyed our first, and one of our best, traditional Japanese dinners.
The morning of January 17 began with snow gently falling. Tree branches and the ground were covered with a few fresh inches making a beautiful sight and a nice backdrop for some birds that would be attractive anyway, Common Bullfinches with their subtle rosy-and-gray coloration. Five species of tits, a nuthatch, and a jay, were enjoying their breakfasts at bird feeders outside the windows of a room where we were enjoying ours. In nearby trees, there were White-backed and Grey-headed Woodpeckers. In the afternoon, we travelled east across Hokkaido. Animals along the way included Sika Deer, Red Fox, and Arctic Hare.
On January 18, we spent a good part of a very good day with as many as 180 Red-crowned, or Japanese, Cranes, as they were calling, leaping, and sometimes just standing gracefully on the snow. That afternoon, a man dispersed some small fish on that snow, and the cranes were joined by a number of White-tailed Eagles and Black-eared Kites. The raptors flew in close to us, as they lowered their talons to the ground grabbing the fish.

Red-crowned (Japanese) Cranes,
during a FONT Japan Winter Birding Tour,
photo © by
Allan Beach, of Ohio, USA,
Our day ended with a close look at 2 huge Blakiston's Fish-Owls, shortly after sunset. They both perched in a bare tree not far from us. As a light shone on them, we saw them so very well. Happy we were, sleeping that night so very well.
On January 19, we saw as many as 120 Harlequin drakes and ducks along the shoreline of the Shiretoko Peninsula in eastern Hokkaido. Also that day, along that wintry coast, our tally of magnificent Steller's Sea-Eagles was 170, both immatures and adults. Birding doesn't get much better, anywhere, than it was for us this and the previous day.

Steller's Sea-Eagles,
during a FONT Japan Winter Birding Tour,
photo © by
Allan Beach, of Ohio, USA.
The 19th of January began with
some flocks of Whooper Swans along the edge of a large lake. The large
white birds would be obvious enough, but they made their presence all the more
known with their loud calls.
Also white were the estimated 2,400 Glaucous Gulls we saw this day along
the seacoast. But that species was not the most numerous. We estimated about 9,000
Slaty-backed Gulls.
In the air, Rough-legged Hawks hovered. On the ocean and bays, there were
many ducks (Common Scoters were common), and other waterbirds
such as Pelagic Cormorant and Red-necked Grebe.
Small birds this day were few (that was fine with all the good big ones), but
notable were our first Brown Dippers, in frigid waters of streams. We
were to see these little dapper dippers on three islands during our stay in
Japan.
January 20 was a travel day - in a van, on a plane, in a bus, on the bullet-train, and then another van. We went from Hokkaido back to the main Japanese island of Honshu. We passed by many people this day as we traveled, but where we ended up was an uncrowded and quite beautiful place on the shore of the large Lake Biwa.
On January 21, we saw
over 200 Falcated Ducks among the many waterbirds (ducks,
grebes, cormorants, and gulls) at Lake Biwa. On a small
pond, nearby, we saw another species of duck that's "a must" during a
winter visit to Japan, the Baikal Teal. Formerly common, now overall the
bird is a rarity. The drake, boldly patterned, is a sight. Other waterfowl this
day included Bewick's Swans and Bean Geese.
Little villages by the lake, with narrow streets and characteristic
architecture, were "so very Japanese". Birds there included Japanese
Wagtail, Daurian Redstart, and on fancy roofs, Blue Rock Thrush.
Nearby, we saw Japanese Macaques, also known as "Snow
Monkeys". We actually saw them in times of drizzle and sunshine, but
when we went higher into the hills, they were amidst flurries of falling snow.
January 22 began with the red round ball of the Sun rising over the
opposite shoreline Lake Biwa. Japan is "the Land of the Rising Sun".
Later, high in a clear sky, a Mountain (or Hodgson's) Hawk-Eagle was the first of two
"firsts for FONT tours". The other "new bird" for FONT
Japanese tours would be later in Kyushu.
Also in the area of Biwa-ko (as Lake Biwa would be in Japanese), there
were, on the ground, Grey-headed Lapwings and Long-billed Plovers.
Both Japanese Green Woodpecker and Japanese Green Pheasant were
seen, the latter a lone male in a field. It was the only "Kiji" during
the tour. This native pheasant is the national bird of Japan.
After over-nighting in Kyoto, we flew on January 23 to Kyushu, where we had our first taste of birding on that most-southerly of the main Japanese islands. Along a stream, there were a few Mandarins, a dipper, and a Crested Kingfisher. Then, there were CRANES - many of them!
On January 24,
participants on our tour saw 6 species of cranes wintering in the area of
Izumi, on Kyushu. There were about 5 thousand Hooded Cranes and over 2
thousand White-naped Cranes (the bulk of the world's population of these
2 species). With them were some Common, or Eurasian, Cranes (we
saw 2), Sandhill Crane (some of us saw 1), a lone Siberian
White Crane (which we saw well on the ground - once much a loner, by
itself - and heard it call in flight above us), and last, but certainly not
least, a pair of stately Demosielle Cranes sharing a field with some Hooded
and White-naped.
We experienced daybreak with the cranes. As the sun rose, the cranes
called. Flocks flew about.
Among other birds we saw this day were the rare Black-faced Spoonbill, a Ruff,
Daurian Jackdaw, and a flock of nearly 25 Chinese Penduline-Tits. The
last of these winter in Japan, coming from somewhere in China.
In the morning on January 25,
we saw the second of the two birds during the tour "new for FONT in
Japan". There were 2 Pallas', or Great Black-headed Gulls,
where we also saw 3 Saunder's Gulls. All of these came to winter along
the western Japan coast from mainland Asia.
Later in the day, in highlands, we saw Yellow-throated, and other Buntings,
Japanse Grosbeaks, and Bramblings.
Along a river in the hills, in eastern Kyushu, that afternoon we had a rough
count of 200 Mandarins. On the blue-green water, the colorful ducks were
absolutely beautiful. Had we been able to stop more often along the road in the
valley, we may well have seen even more of these fine birds. In that region, in
the prefecture of Miyazaki, during a mid-winter waterfowl count in 1995, a total
of 796 Mandarin Ducks were found. That winter, in all of Japan, 18,703 were
counted.
But the Mandarins were not all there was to see along that road in the river
valley. Late in the afternoon, there was a Ural Owl perched, roadside, on
a wire. After we turned around, we stopped and got out of our vehicles, and then
saw the dark owl in our scopes. Yes, it stayed - in fact, it was reluctant to
leave. When it flew it was just for a short distance to another place on the
wire. It was a great way to end our day, and our Kyushu birding.
On January 26, some of us said good-bye, and others continued south on the next tour segment to include Amami and Okinawa.
On January 27, on a beach
on the island of Amami, at one time in front of us, there were 7 species of
plovers. As the tide was coming in, the birds got closer and closer. There
were about 500 Kentish Plovers, and nearly 400 Mongolian, or Lesser
Sandplovers. With them was one Greater Sandplover. Thus there was a
fine comparison of the Greater and Lesser. Also in the mix along
that shore were 2 Long-billed Plovers (unusual that far south), a
number of Little Ringed Plovers, about 70 Pacific Golden Plovers,
and 25 or so Grey, or Black-bellied, Plovers.
Earlier in the day, elsewhere on Amami, we saw the colorful endemic Lidth's
Jay.
And later, on January 27, after darkness fell, we observed a Long-eared Owl
hunting along a dirt road in the forest. Animated it was, with its orange eyes
wide open. But it was using its ears more than it eyes as it tilted its head at
various angles. From our vehicle, we watched the owl, in front of us, hover over
the road across which mice ran.
A little later yet, that night, in front of us in our stopped vehicle, we
watched an endemic Amami Woodcock, standing on the road. It was in no
hurry to go. In fact, after wandering for a moment off the road, it came back,
giving us yet another tremendous look at a threatened species.
Early the next morning, on January 28th, along a dirt road in the forest, we had a look at the rarest of the Amami endemics, the Amami Thrush.
In the Okinawa forest, on
January 30, 5 Pryer's Woodpeckers were seen. It is said that over the
years the population of this species has ranged from 40 to 100 birds. Thus,
assuming the Ivory-billed Woodpecker to be extinct, this woodpecker endemic to
northern Okinawa could well be the rarest woodpecker in the world. It's quite a
bird, with its large, bright bill.
The Okinawa Rail eluded us this time. Sometimes we see it, usually we hear it,
but in January 2002 for us it was not to be. Incidentally, that forest rail
eluded science until 1981.
Among birds that we did see on Okinawa, however, were some good ones indeed. In
a paddy, both female and male Painted-Snipe were seen nicely. As with
phalaropes, female Painted-Snipes are the more colorful - very nice to see. Also
in areas of paddies, we enjoyed looks at the bright Cinnamon Bittern, Pacific
Golden-Plovers in various plumages, and among many Common, or Fantail,
Snipe, there were 1 or 2 Pintail Snipe. These were among about 25
species of shorebirds, or waders, we saw on Okinawa. Also notable
among them were both Eurasian and Far Eastern Curlews, Red-necked
and Long-toed Stints, and Grey-tailed Tattler. Again, as on
Kyushu, there were 3 Saunder's Gulls from China.
Also from China, or elsewhere in
Asia, some vagrant starlings were visiting Okinawa when we were. At one farm
pasture (and there aren't many in Okinawa), there were with some Grey
(or White-faced), a single White-shouldered (or Chinese),
and a few Common Starlings.
(The next day, there were also 3 Silky, or Red-billed,
Starlings). None of these routinely occur on Okinawa - in fact,
during our tours in the past, we've never seen a starling of any kind on the
island.
During our Okinawan nights and early mornings, as we were out and about, we had
good looks at what's now called the Japanese Scops-Owl (formerly
included in the Collared Scops-Owl).
As you've read, our January 2002 Japan Tour was a good one for owls - and many other birds as well!
The "Top Birds", as voted afterwards by the dozen or so tour participants, were:
# 1 - Blakiston's Fish-Owl
# 2 - Red-crowned (Japanese) Crane
# 3 - Steller' Sea-Eagle
# 4 - Amami Woodcock
# 5 - White-naped Crane
# 6 - Pryer's Woodpecker
# 7 - Ural Owl
# 8 - Long-billed Plover
# 9 - Siberian Crane
#10 - Mandarin Duck
#11 - Demosielle Crane
#12 - Greater Painted-Snipe
#13 - Whooper Swan
#14 - Baikal Teal
#15 - White-tailed Eagle
Now, that's good birding!
The following
comment came in a letter after the tour by participant, Mr. Sandy Gordon, of
Cardross, Scotland:
Dear Armas,
Having got back home from Japan, I would like to thank you
for taking such good care of us during the tour.
I took back with me a host of memories of the birds, of the
landscape of the country, and the companionship of my fellow birders. We
certainly got good looks at the target species and it is astonishing that while
Japan does not have a great quantity of birdlife, so much of what it has is so
special!
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Our early Spring
Birding Tour in
Japan in 2001 was one of the most enjoyable FONT
tours ever done. With fine spring weather, and lots of trees in colorful
blossom, there were some wonderful birds that fit well into the setting. Among
them:
colorful Mandarin Ducks, in small flocks, floating on still ponds,
Japanese Murrelets on the sea, along with hundreds & hundreds of Streaked
Shearwaters,
male Copper Pheasants, early in the morning, displaying close at hand in the
forest (they drum their wings as a Ruffed Grouse does its tail),
also flocks of migrants from shorebirds (including Great Knot, Far Eastern
Curlew, and Mongolian Plovers) to buntings and finches (a lingerer was a
Pallas', or Siberian, Rosefinch).
Signs of spring were Japanese Reed Buntings singing on territories and the rare
Japanese Marsh Warbler doing its display flight.
But the highlight of the tour was a visit to a small island (only 1 kilometer by 2 kilometers) in the Sea of Japan where there was a tremendous fallout of northbound migrants. The island called Hegura-jima, about 50 kilometers offshore, reached by boat. We overnighted on the island in an inn - one of very few buildings. One could easily walk the circumference of the island in just over an hour. The few residents there earn a living by fishing and collecting seaweed. It's such a picturesque place, with a tall white lighthouse, and no automobiles. Just small lanes and paths. But, oh my, were there birds!
As we walked from the boat dock to the inn, between small buildings and in the brush, birds abounded. Many of them: Siberian Stonechats, Red-flanked Bluetails, Daurian Redstarts, Dusky Thrushes, Bramblings, Rustic Buntings, and Eurasian Siskins. But others too. Among the 70 or so species found on the small island: Japanese Robins, Siberian Rubythroat, White's Ground Thrush, Hoopoes, Eastern Crowned Warblers and Sikhalin Leaf Warblers, just to name a few. There are no tall trees so birds that can be hard to see at other places were not on Hegurajima. Vagrants for Japan were Black Redstart and Greater Short-toed Lark.
Our April 2001 tour was the 12th FONT
birding tour in Japan.
Over the years, our Japanese Winter Birding Tours have been very popular
(understandably with cranes, eagles, Blakiston's Fish-Owl and more). But during
the winter tours, the length of Japan is covered, from Hokkaido to Okinawa. A nice
feature of our Spring tour is less travel - we're only on Honshu, with migrant
birds coming, actually, to US in various habitats.
FONT birding tours in Japan have been led by Armas Hill, with the aid of various local birding contacts throughout the country. Armas has birded in Japan extensively since 1984.