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| Short-tailed Albatross |
In case you missed it: Japan Winter Birding - Part 1
Japan Winter Birding - Part 2
eBird Trip Report
From Hokkaido we flew all the way south to the island of Kyushu, thankful for the warmer weather. We drove to the city of Izumi, a famous area for wintering cranes. We spent two days of general birding and visiting the crane feeding areas. There are two crane species that winter in large numbers here - Hooded and White-naped, both life birds for us. Less common or vagrants can include Siberian, Common, Demoiselle, and even Sandhill. We had all of them except Siberian and Sandhill. The one individual Siberian that had been wintering here left just days before we arrived. That really sucked, it would have completed the set of all world cranes for Susan and me. But there were buckets of life birds and rarities around to drown our disappointment. Great birds like Red-billed Starling, Chinese Penduline-Tit, Saunders Gull (in breeding plumage!), Yellow-billed Grosbeak, and a bird we've wanted for a while - Lesser White-fronted Goose. A Swan Goose that wasn't an escapee in a park in southern California was super cool.
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| Cranes, and many of them |
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| Izumi Crane Observation Center |
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| Checking out the Saunder's Gulls |
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| Red-billed Starling |
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| Chinese Penduline-Tit, a tiny little bird that can be exceedingly difficult to find and see |
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| Two disproportionate corvids, Daurian Jackdaw and Rook |
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| Eurasian Spoonbill |
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| White-naped Crane |
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Hooded Crane
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| Swan Goose - a wild one! |
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| Saunder's Gull |
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| Black-faced Spoonbills |
The next day we headed to a reservoir up in the mountains for some new things. While not tame enough to get anywhere close to, the dozens of Mandarin Ducks were amazing to see. A Japanese Grosbeak perched nicely in the rain was quite lovely.
More mountain travel, and more rain, so we spent some time doing a little birding and checking out the lovely Kirishima Jungu Shrine.
We finished the day in the mountain town of Kirishima, complete with hot springs (onsen). At our hotel it was somewhat expected to wear traditional clothing to dinner (provided by the hotel). I thought we all looked pretty snappy.
The next day we were down at the coast for a very fun outing. We took a boat out into Kadogawa Harbor to search for Japanese Murrelets. These American Robin sized seabirds spend most of their lives out on the big ocean, only coming near land during the breeding season. Approximately 50% of all Japanese Murrelets breed on a small island just offshore from the harbor. We were at the early end of the season for them, but had no problem finding a few pairs in the open waters just past the inner breakwater. Our boat captain had time to take us on a site seeing tour after we had our fill of murrelets.
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| Japanese Murrelets |
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| Japanese Cormorant and Slaty-backed Gull |
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| Great-crested Grebe |
Heading out the next day we had a few hours of birding time before reaching the airport. The real treat of the day was being shown the very rare Japanese race of Mountain Hawk-Eagle by a local friend of Charley's. Super cool.
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| Mountain Hawk-Eagle |
While the trip was winding down, we were nowhere near done. We flew into Tokyo then taxied down to Tokyo Harbor to board an overnight ferry that goes to Miakejima, a small volcanic island. The boat left at 10:00pm and arrived at the island at 5:00am in the dark. The ferry had another stop to make further on and wouldn't be back until 1:00pm. That gave us all morning to hunt down the last three endemics we needed to complete our sweep - Izu Thrush, Izu Robin, and Owsten's Tit. There were other local subspecies to see too, and we got them all.
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| There's a lovely crater lake in the middle of the island |
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| Japanese Weasel, unfortunately introduced on this island |
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| Izu Thrush |
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| Local race of Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker |
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| Local race of Warbling White-eye |
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| Izu Robin |
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| Owsten's Tit |
The boat ride back was magnificent. This part of the ocean can get pretty nasty - big storms and big waves. We had great weather and fairly calm seas. Perfect conditions for several hours of pelagic birding. And the number of birds was amazing. Three species of albatross - Laysan, Black-footed and the biggie, Short-tailed. I think we did a fairly good job at counting the number of Short-tailed that we saw, and some quick back of the envelope math says we saw over 2% of the entire world population of this critically endangered species. Pretty incredible. The numbers of Streaked Shearwaters was mind boggling. Thousands and thousands. And the handful of Providence Petrels (life bird!!) that came by was fantastic. Throw in a few other odds and ends and it was a wonderful trip on the water.  |
| Our ride |
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| Saying goodbye to Miyakejima |
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| Short-tailed Albatross adult |
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| Short-tailed Albatross immature |
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| Providence Petrel |
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| Streaked Shearwater |
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| Black-footed Albatross |
All good things must end, and this tour did when the boat docked back in Tokyo Harbor. Susan and I boarded the bullet train for Kyoto the next morning to go play tourists, and she'll report on that soon.
A big thank you to our friends Bob, Diana, and Kathy for a wonderful trip. Kathy, we really appreciate you working with Tropical Birding to make this tour possible and letting us come along. And to Charley, what a wonderful trip, and we thank you for your expertise, patience, and friendship. We are really looking forward to seeing you again in the fall in Borneo!
