The targets for our birding in Japan were two new cranes and the best time to see them is in the winter. In the end, we saw five species of crane - Red-crowned, Hooded, Common, White-naped and Sandhill Cranes. Red-crowned and Hooded were new as it turned out that we had seen White-naped Crane in China. We also wanted to do a seabird trip off Hokkaido and to see the Blakiston’s Fish Owl. However, while in Japan we would make the most of the visit and look for new birds including two possible pheasants. An itinerary was worked out with Kaz Shinoda (ornitho@pf7.so-net.ne.jp) and at a time when he was available to be our guide.
We left a hot Brisbane summer on 8 December at 12:10 pm arriving in Tokyo (Haneda airport) on the 9th where we crossed to the domestic terminal and met Kaz. The first part of our stay was on the island of Kyushu. We stayed at Hotel King in Izumi City near the Arasaki Crane Reserve. Driving there, we stopped at the reservoir for the Sendai nuclear power plant in Satsuma. This area is good for pheasants but we did not find any here. Kaz had his own car GPS that he set up in the hire car and it was most useful to locate birding spots, restaurants and hotels, an essential tool. The food at the places we stayed was all traditional Japanese and we were happy to eat what locals eat. My coeliac problem made life a bit difficult as it is hard to know what contains wheat and even the miso soup sometimes contained fu (wheat noodle). Even though there appeared to be a range of options on the menu after advice from the waiters I was left with minced raw tuna on rice with raw cabbage and no soya sauce on more than one occasion.
Birds on Kyushu included Mandarin Duck, Falcated Duck, White-naped, Hooded, Sandhill, and Common Cranes, Chinese Penduline-tit, Varied Tit, Japanese Bush Warbler, Daurian Redstart, Japanese Grosbeak and Meadow and Black-faced Buntings. We saw Crested Kingfisher, Brown Dipper and Japanese Wagtail at Kagowa Dam. We visited a Black-faced Spoonbill roost in north-western Kyushu and saw a number of gulls in the area of the Kuma and Hikawa Rivers. The gulls seen included Saunders, Black-headed, Black-tailed, Vega, Thayer’s and Heugilins. To visit Miike Lake we stayed at a traditional onsen hotel where we tried the hot springs bath. The meals were a major event at onsens with several courses and some real treats including oysters. There we lots of ducks at Miike Lake including Tufted Duck and Greater Scaup and we saw both the Pygmy and Japanese Woodpeckers. Kaz and I also saw a female Grey Bunting. We flew from Kyushu on the 12th and stayed the night at the Exceeda hotel at Haneda airport. This allowed us to fly out to Hokkaido early the next morning.
We arrived in Hokkaido, Kushiro Airport at about 10:15 am to 0 degrees C. Before we left the airport, we quickly added the extra layers of clothing specially acquired for the trip. The scenery of snow and stark tree trunks was particularly Christmassy and something we had never experienced living in the sub-tropics. Once the car was set up again, we visited the Akan International Crane reserve. Here the cranes are fed fish as well as corn and this attracts White-tailed Eagles and Carrion Crows. We saw a Red Fox at the edge of the field. The cranes are fed at 2 pm and it was dark at 4 pm when we reached our accommodation, Hotel Taito at Tsuri Northern Village. Birds seen around the crane centre included Great Spotted Woodpecker, Brown-headed Bulbul, Goldcrest and Dusky Thrush. The next morning we visited the special spot for photographing cranes at the Otowa bridge on the Setsuri River. We left our hotel at 6 am so that we were there at dawn. It was -9 degrees C but beautiful. With some information from the hotel owner, we then went looking for and found a Ural Owl at its day roost near Dosanko Range. This excellent view ranked high up as the bird of the trip. From there, we drove north-east to Lake Kussharo where we saw Whooper Swans later in the day. We also looked for Black Woodpecker without success in the forests around the lake before we drove northeast towards the east coast of Hokkaido.
It was a reasonably long drive to get to the luxurious inn (Daiichi Inn) where we hoped to see Blakiston’s Fish Owl. We arrived on dark (16:15) and booked in, taking our welcome refreshments to the window where we were in time for the fish to be placed in the little pool for the owl. On queue, a massive reddish-coloured owl appeared out of the dark forest. About nine fish were eaten by two owls in about 15 minutes and they gave great views and photographs.
Our room in the hotel was in a new wing and we almost needed a map to find our way to and from the restaurant and reception area. The view along the stream from our room was fantastic and we could see nuthatches, tits, bulbuls, Japanese Martin and squirrels out in the snow. It would have been nice to see the Solitary Snipe that lives along the stream but this was not to be. The next adventure was the boat trip from Ochiishi Port. When we arrived it was doubtful that the trip would be on, given the strong winds. However, the captain agreed to go and so we braved the weather and rough seas to get to a point sheltered by islands. Here we saw Black Scoter, Red-faced Cormorant, Spectacled Guillemot and Red-necked Grebe. After the 2 hr boat trip, we had a quick walk in the Nemuro Citizen’s forest looking without success for Asian Rosy Finches. On the way back to the inn, we were driving in the dark in heavy mist and it was hard to see the edge of the road as it is dark at 3:30 pm. The next day, we made a visit to the Notsuke Penisular Nature Reserve. This provided good views of about 30 Steller’s Sea-eagles but we dipped again on the Asian Rosy Finches. From Nakashibetsu Airport, we flew to Honshu where we again stayed at Hotel Exceeda in Haneda Airport, Tokyo.
Kaz picked up his car from home for this part of the tour on Honshu. The driving here needed a very good GPS and serious concentration to navigate between the numerous freeways. It took all morning to reach the mountain foothills of the Japanese Alps at Kariuzawa. The best bird for the day was a Japanese Accentor that we saw just on dark. We stayed at the Shitsutsu Hot Springs Hotel. It was Kaz’s birthday and the hotel provided a free bottle of wine to celebrate. It was up about 7 am the next morning to look for the Copper Pheasant in the -5 degrees C dawn. However, active logging along the trail did not give us much hope for seeing a pheasant.
After Kariuzawa, we went to Saku, a small reservoir on the Chikuma R. Baikal Teal and been seen there occasionally, but we did see great numbers of ducks including Gadwall, Falcated Duck, Eurasian Widgeon, Mallard, Eastern Spot-billed Duck, Northern Pintail, Green-winged Teal, Common Pochard, Tufted Duck, Greater Scaup, Smew and Common Merganser. We also saw Long-billed Plover in the nearby river. Now we were in Tokyo (Yokohama area), Kaz could stay at his house and we enjoyed a meal with Kaz’s family, who kindly took us to a favourite local restaurant. We stayed at Hotel Mets, and getting experienced with Japanese food, our breakfast religiously included the unusual traditional fermented soya beans. The soya beans have slime and you have to cope with the smell and manage the strings of fungus attaching to the beans. Another new practice was buying tins of hot coffee from vending machines.
The next day was cold and windy when we went to the Sakai R wetland park, focusing on the Japanese Green Pheasant. This seemed like a tall order, given it was Saturday and the conditions were against us with strong winds, squally rain and large crowds. Excited firstly by a female Japanese Green Pheasant in the undergrowth, we then had great views of a male walking along the river. David also saw a Brown-cheeked Rail. We visited Maioka Park in the afternoon, a quite developed park where the Brown-headed Thrush had attracted several photographers, and late in the day we found the Eurasian Woodcock. This was only our second specie of woodcock. Pallas’s Rosefinch and Chinese Bamboo Partridge are also possible in this park and the photographers had heard the rosefinch before we arrived.
Our next spot was in Chiba prefecture, Motono Swan Reserve, where we sorted out the two races of the Tundra Swan – Berwicks and the rare Whistling. It was then on to Imbanaba marsh for Baikal Teal. You have to arrive at Imbanaba late in the afternoon so the sun is behind you as you scan the 10s of thousands of ducks looking for the odd Baikal Teal. David managed to see and was happy with his view of a female but I could not find that bird in amongst the other several thousand ducks. You have to look for the ducks just on dark and it is challenging. That night we stayed at the Narita View Hotel. On our last day, we visited Edosaki to see the two Bean Geese – Taiga and Tundra. There is a canal behind the rice paddies where there were large numbers of Northern Pintail. Among the pintail were two male Baikal Teal and a fantastic end to the trip. Buoyed by our success, it was back to Imbanaba, walking around the farm land looking unsuccessfully for rosefinches. Kaz dropped us at the airport; we flew from Narita on 21 December, arriving home in the morning of 22 December.
Bird species list total 141 species with 20 new.
Taiga Bean-Goose Anser fabalis
Tundra Bean-Goose Anser serrirostris
Brant Branta bernicla
Tundra Swan Cygnus columbianus
Whooper Swan Cygnus cygnus
Common Shelduck Tadorna tadorna
Mandarin Duck Aix galericulata
Gadwall Anas strepera
Falcated Duck Anas falcata
Eurasian Wigeon Anas penelope
Mallard Anas platyrhynchos
Eastern Spot-billed Duck Anas zonorhyncha
Northern Shoveler Anas clypeata
Northern Pintail Anas acuta
Garganey Anas querquedula
Baikal Teal Anas formosa
Green-winged Teal Anas crecca
Common Pochard Aythya ferina
Tufted Duck Aythya fuligula
Greater Scaup Aythya marila
Harlequin Duck Histrionicus histrionicus
White-winged Scoter Melanitta fusca
Black Scoter Melanitta americana
Long-tailed Duck Clangula hyemalis
Common Goldeneye Bucephala clangula
Smew Mergellus albellus
Common Merganser Mergus merganser
Red-breasted Merganser Mergus serrator
Ring-necked Pheasant Phasianus colchicus
Red-throated Loon Gavia stellata
Little Grebe Tachybaptus ruficollis
Horned Grebe Podiceps auritus
Red-necked Grebe Podiceps grisegena
Great Crested Grebe Podiceps cristatus
Eared Grebe Podiceps nigricollis
Great Cormorant Phalacrocorax carbo
Japanese Cormorant Phalacrocorax capillatus
Red-faced Cormorant Phalacrocorax urile
Pelagic Cormorant Phalacrocorax pelagicus
Gray Heron Ardea cinerea
Great Egret Ardea alba
Little Egret Egretta garzetta
Black-faced Spoonbill Platalea minor
Eastern Osprey Pandion haliaetus
Eastern Marsh-Harrier Circus spilonotus
Northern Harrier Circus cyaneus
Eurasian Sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus
Black Kite Milvus migrans
White-tailed Eagle Haliaeetus albicilla
Steller's Sea-Eagle Haliaeetus pelagicus
Common Buzzard Buteo buteo
Brown-cheeked Rail Rallus indicus
Eurasian Moorhen Gallinula chloropus
Eurasian Coot Fulica atra
Sandhill Crane Grus canadensis
White-naped Crane Grus vipio
Common Crane Grus grus
Hooded Crane Grus monacha
Red-crowned Crane Grus japonensis
Northern Lapwing Vanellus vanellus
Kentish Plover Charadrius alexandrinus
Long-billed Plover Charadrius placidus
Little Ringed Plover Charadrius dubius
Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos
Green Sandpiper Tringa ochropus
Common Greenshank Tringa nebularia
Dunlin Calidris alpina
Common Snipe Gallinago gallinago
Eurasian Woodcock Scolopax rusticola
Saunders's Gull Saundersilarus saundersi
Black-headed Gull Chroicocephalus ridibundus
Black-tailed Gull Larus crassirostris
Mew Gull Larus canus
Herring Gull Larus argentatus
Thayer's Gull Larus thayeri
Lesser Black-backed Gull Larus fuscus
Slaty-backed Gull Larus schistisagus
Glaucous-winged Gull Larus glaucescens
Glaucous Gull Larus hyperboreus
Common Murre Uria aalge
Spectacled Guillemot Cepphus carbo
Ancient Murrelet Synthliboramphus antiquus
Rock Pigeon Columba livia
Oriental Turtle-Dove Streptopelia orientalis
Blakiston's Fish-Owl Ketupa blakistoni
Ural Owl Strix uralensis
Common Kingfisher Alcedo atthis
Crested Kingfisher Megaceryle lugubris
Pygmy Woodpecker Dendrocopos kizuki
White-backed Woodpecker Dendrocopos leucotos
Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos major
Japanese Woodpecker Picus awokera
Eurasian Kestrel Falco tinnunculus
Japanese Accentor Prunella rubida
Gray Wagtail Motacilla cinerea
White Wagtail Motacilla alba
Japanese Wagtail Motacilla grandis
Olive-backed Pipit Anthus hodgsoni
American Pipit Anthus rubescens
Forest Wagtail Dendronanthus indicus
Meadow Bunting Emberiza cioides
Rustic Bunting Emberiza rustica
Yellow-throated Bunting Emberiza elegans
Black-faced Bunting Emberiza spodocephala
Gray Bunting Emberiza variabilis
Reed Bunting Emberiza schoeniclus
Oriental Greenfinch Chloris sinica
Common Redpoll Acanthis flammea
Hawfinch Coccothraustes coccothraustes
Japanese Grosbeak Eophona personata
Russet Sparrow Passer rutilans
Eurasian Tree Sparrow Passer montanus
Bull-headed Shrike Lanius bucephalus
Eurasian Jay Garrulus glandarius
Azure-winged Magpie Cyanopica cyanus
Rook Corvus frugilegus
Carrion Crow Corvus corone
Large-billed Crow Corvus macrorhynchos
Sky Lark Alauda arvensis
Asian House-Martin Delichon dasypus
Marsh Tit Poecile palustris
Willow Tit Poecile montanus
Coal Tit Periparus ater
Great Tit Parus major
Varied Tit Sittiparus varius
Chinese Penduline-Tit Remiz consobrinus
Long-tailed Tit Aegithalos caudatus
Eurasian Nuthatch Sitta europaea
Eurasian Wren Troglodytes troglodytes
Brown Dipper Cinclus pallasii
Brown-eared Bulbul Hypsipetes amaurotis
Goldcrest Regulus regulus
Japanese Bush-Warbler Cettia diphone
Japanese White-eye Zosterops japonicus
Red-flanked Bluetail Tarsiger cyanurus
Daurian Redstart Phoenicurus auroreus
Pale Thrush Turdus pallidus
Brown-headed Thrush Turdus chrysolaus
Dusky Thrush Turdus eunomus
White-cheeked Starling Sturnus cineraceus