Hi tweeters,

I just got back from two weeks on a tour over three islands in Japan (Hokkaido, Honshu, Kyushu). It was a good trip - 143 species.

Highlights included:
BLAKISTON'S FISH OWL (1 pair, Hokkaido)
DEMOISELLE CRANE (1 pair, Izumi, Kyushu)
SIBERIAN WHITE CRANE (1, Izumi, Kyushu)
JAPANESE CRANE (300, Hokkaido)
STELLER'S SEA EAGLE (50-100, NE Hokkaido)
URAL OWL (1, C Kyushu)
BAIKAL TEAL (2 males, N Lake Biwa, Honshu)
SAUNDER'S GULL (1, W Kyushu)

The photos are on http://www.geocities.com/christinevadai/japan2002/japan.html.

The tour group consisted of 12 people, lead by Armas Hill of Focus On Nature Tours. We spent day 1 birding at the Meiji Shrine and Ueno Park in Tokyo. Around the hotel (near the Tokyo Tower) numerous Brown-eared Bulbuls, Gray Starlings and several Azure-winged Magpies were feeding in the trees by the taxi stand. At the Meiji Shrine, we found lots of nice birds in the woods, including Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers, Brown Thrush, Japanese Bush Warbler, Japanese White-eye, Dusky Thrush, Pale Thrush, Hawfinches, Varied Tits, and a female Red-flanked Bluetail. The highlight for many of us was a small flock of gorgeous Mandarin Ducks that were wintering in a pond on the north end of the park. There were also a lot of birds at Ueno Park, mostly ducks such as Common Pochard and Tufted Ducks, but also a female Smew, several Little Grebes and a flock of Great Cormorants

Day 2 was spent on a ferry to Hokkaido. In spite of the extreme cold, the intrepid birders remained on deck nearly the entire day, and sighted several Laysan Albatross, one Short-tailed Albatross (only seen by 2, unfortunately I wasn't one of them), lots of Common and Thick-billed Murres, Ancient Murrelets, and at least 4 Crested Auklets. At one point, the cold sent me in search of a hot drink, and as they had removed the green tea dispenser, I approached one of the ubiquitous vending machines in search of hot tea. I found a bottle of something that to me seemed to resemble green tea, but one swig revealed it was not - it was a very big bottle of sake! I shared it, and we did get a little warmer, anyway.

Days 3-5 were spent on Hokkaido, between the Sapporo Airport, Kushiro and Shibetsu. The woods in western Hokkaido offered up a nice variety of birds, especially around the feeders at the hotel. We saw Great Spotted, Gray-headed and White-backed Woodpeckers, Great, Marsh, Varied, Willow and Coal Tits, Hawfinches, Jays and Eurasian Nuthatches. After an unsuccessful search for Steller's Sea Eagles along a frozen road, we stopped at a crane reserve near the Kushiro airport where we observed at least 300 Japanese cranes swooping in and dancing in the sunlight, to the delight of the many photographers around. That evening, we visited a remote area to look for Blakiston's Fish Owls, and found a pair just as they swooped in and landed on a utility pole at dusk. The following day, we drove up toward Shibetsu in the extreme northeastern part of the island (facing the Kurile Islands), where we found the bay full of Long-tailed Ducks and Black Scoters, and at least 50 Steller's Sea Eagles on an utterly frozen, wind-swept bay. There were still more of them in trees as we drove along the coast. I was excited to find many Glaucous and Slaty-backed Gulls along the coast, while everyone else seemed more impressed by a lone Glaucous-winged Gull! And, in the midst of this icy wilderness, each running stream produced at least one, if not two Brown Dippers. One of the streams even featured a man bathing au natural in an adjacent hot springs. He was definitely not pleased to suddenly notice 12 gaijin combing the area with their scopes and binoculars!

Afterwards, we returned to Tokyo by plane, and took the bullet train to Kyoto. From there, we proceeded to our hotel on Lake Biwa. Unfortunately, it was raining the first day, but we did manage to find two male Baikal Teal and a male Smew among many Pintails and Common Teal in a muddy marsh on the north end, many Falcated Teal in the lake, several Japanese Wagtails and an Olive-backed Pipit on the beach, and a whole troop of Snow Monkeys along the road. The following day was a bit drier, and we also spotted two Japanese Green Woodpeckers, a Eurasian Kingfisher, and several Long-billed Plovers foraging on the sandy beach. After an aborted search for Japanese Accentors along a mountain stream (that terminated in a snowy, windy dead-end), we hurried back to Kyoto to spend the night before flying to Kagoshima the next morning.

The final days on Kyushu were a bit harried. We spent the first day at Izumi, where we found four species of cranes in the fields: the numerous Hooded and White-naped, one rare Siberian White, and two juvenile Common Cranes. The following morning, we relocated the Siberian White, and also found two delicate Demoiselle Cranes in an unlikely field between a shopping center and a railroad bridge. We also found a female Ruff, three Pacific Golden Plovers, several Shelducks, three Black-faced Spoonbills among the cranes along the main dike, and a cute flock of Penduline Tits in a reed marsh nearby. On the final day, we spent the morning in pursuit of two Great Black-headed and one Saunder's Gull that had been reported in the sand bank in the mouth of a river near Kumamoto. After finding them (and all three were fast asleep), we unsuccessfully searched for Copper Pheasant in the highlands (but did find Yellow-throated and other buntings, Bramblings, Siskins, and a Japanese Grosbeak), and then literally raced the sun as we wound our way toward the eastern coast to look for Japanese Murrelets. Unfortunately, we didn't make it before dark, but on the way, we did notice the mountain streams were full of Mandarin Ducks, and soon afterwards spotted a very active Ural Owl on a wire. We observed it hunting roadside for at least 15 minutes, which was a nice treat.

It was an exhausting trip, but it was fun.

Species list:
Little Grebe
Red-necked Grebe
Great-crested Grebe
Laysan Albatross
Northern Fulmar
Great Cormorant
Japanese Cormorant
Pelagic Cormorant
Cattle Egret
Little Egret
Great Egret
Grey Heron
White Spoonbill
Black-faced Spoonbill
Tundra (Bewick's) Swan
Whooper Swan
Bean Goose
Common Shelduck
Mandarin Duck
Eurasian Wigeon
American Wigeon (probable hybrid)
Falcated Teal
Gadwall
Baikal Teal
Eurasian Teal
Mallard
Spot-billed Duck
Northern Pintail
Northern Shoveler
Common Pochard
Tufted Duck
Harlequin Duck
Long-tailed Duck
Black Scoter
White-winged Scoter
Common Goldeneye
Smew
Red-breasted Merganser
Common Merganser
Osprey
Black Kite
White-tailed Eagle
Steller's Sea Eagle
Eurasian Sparrowhawk
Northern Goshawk
Buzzard
Rough-legged Hawk
Hodgson's Hawk Eagle
Eurasian Kestrel
Japanese Green Pheasant
Common Moorhen
Eurasian Coot
Common Crane
Hooded Crane
White-naped Crane
Japanese Crane
Siberian White Crane
Demoiselle Crane
Long-billed Plover
Snowy Plover
Pacific Golden Plover
Grey-headed Lapwing
Black-bellied Plover
Northern Lapwing
Red-necked Stint
Dunlin
Ruff
Common Snipe
Green Sandpiper
Common Sandpiper
Great Black-headed Gull
Black-headed Gull
Black-tailed Gull
Mew Gull
Herring Gull
Slaty-backed Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Glaucous Gull
Saunder's Gull
Black-legged Kittiwake
Common Murre
Thick-billed Murre
Ancient Murrelet
Crested Auklet
Rock Dove
Oriental Turtle Dove
Blakiston's Fish Owl
Ural Owl
Eurasian Kingfisher
Greater Pied Kingfisher
Grey-headed Woodpecker
Japanese Green Woodpecker
Great Spotted Woodpecker
White-backed Woodpecker
Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker
Japanese Skylark
Asian House Martin
Olive-backed Pipit
Buff-bellied (Water) Pipit
Gray Wagtail
Black-backed Wagtail
Japanese Wagtail
Japanese Waxwing
Brown Dipper
Red-flanked Bluetail
Daurian Redstart
Blue Rock Thrush
Brown Thrush
Pale Thrush
Dusky Thrush
Japanese Bush Warbler
Zitting Cistocola
Goldcrest
Long-tailed Tit
Marsh Tit
Willow Tit
Varied Tit
Coal Tit
Great Tit
Eurasian Nuthatch
Penduline Tit
Japanese White-eye
Bull-headed Shrike
Eurasian Jay
Azure-winged Magpie
Daurian Jackdaw
Rook
Carrion Crow
Large-billed (Jungle) Crow
Gray Starling
Eurasian Tree Sparrow
Brambling
Oriental Greenfinch
Eurasian Siskin
Common Bullfinch
Japanese Grosbeak
Hawfinch
Black-faced Bunting
Siberian Meadow Bunting
Rustic Bunting
Yellow-throated Bunting
Reed Bunting


Regards and good birding,
Christine Vadai
Mill Creek, WA
christinevadai at sprynet.com