Japan 2015 day 13: Hokkaido - Tokyo - Karuizawa

31 December 2015

Looking north from Furen

Our final morning on Hokkaido was to be spent driving south to Kushiro from Furen, taking in a few sites en route. First port of call was a woodland track between Furen and Ochisii - Take had told us it was a decent place to look for the striking grisiventris subspecies of Bullfinch, which we had not yet seen. A slow drive through the forest with several tactical spots eventually produced a Bullfinch, but alas it was a female rather than the pink-cheeked, grey-bellied male we'd been after! The woods were otherwise pretty quiet, a typical range of common woodland species (including several Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers) and a few Steller's Sea Eagles were as good as it got.

It was pretty clear that the holiday season was in full swing on arrival in Ochisii. The harbour was totally devoid of people, let alone fishing activity, and gulls were extremely thin on the ground. A group of nine Falcated Ducks was a pleasant surprise and there were also several Black Scoters and a Scaup. With time pressing we decided to head south to Kushiro to spend the final couple of hours photographing gulls at the harbour. A quick stop in Akkeshi produced a first-winter Vega and a couple of Kamchatka Gulls among the commoner Slaty-backed and Glaucous-winged Gulls.

Many second-winter Slaty-backed Gulls tend to look quite grotesque

Given that everywhere was shut down for New Year it was no great surprise to find far fewer gulls in an eerily quiet Kushiro harbour, but the Slaty-backs kept us entertained until we'd used up our final four loaves of bread (and two bags of popcorn). There was a little more ice around the harbour which had also concentrated groups of Scaup, Goldeneye, Harlequin and Red-breasted Merganser, and so we enjoyed our final looks at these species (and our last White-tailed Eagle) before the time came to head to the airport for our 13:40 flight.

Kushiro Harbour just a short while before leaving Hokkaido

The rest of the day was spent travelling. We arrived back in Tokyo mid-afternoon, enjoyed a typically efficient breeze through Haneda Airport and were soon at Tokyo station. Before boarding the Shinkansen up to Karuizawa we enjoyed a bit of train-spotting, which I'm not ashamed to admit to in Japan. It's hard not to stand and admire the artistic beauty of the bullet trains arriving and departing with enduring precision at Tokyo station - they are some of the most extraordinarily designed machines you will ever see and I'm certainly not embarrassed to have been the excitable tourist standing at the end of the Platform 23 that afternoon.

Shinkansen at Tokyo station

We were picked up at Karuizawa station by our hosts at Pension Edohara and were enjoying yet another delicious meal soon after. New Year's Eve actually turned out to be a bit of a tame affair, as it apparently is for most people in Japan, Traditionally families spend it together, eating a nice meal and watching their favourite TV programs. So that's what we did, and New Year was welcomed in with a cold Kirin watching some sort of hybrid sport that appeared a mix of sumo, cage fighting and boxing ...

Japan day two: Tokyo

20 December 2015

Unfortunately my 'capsule' was opposite possibly the loudest snorer that I've ever encountered in my life and that, coupled with jet lag, meant that I didn't really sleep all that much overnight and was therefore pretty happy when the clock finally ticked round to 5.30 am.

After a shower I left the hotel and, grabbing breakfast on the way, caught the subway to Meiji Jingū. The park and woodland surrounding the shrine was only completed some 90 years ago but is very well established and a great location for city birding. Not long after arriving and passing through the impressively large Cypress torii (gate) I was enjoying a flock of Dusky Thrushes bathing in a stream as well as my first Varied Tits high in the canopy. Further strolling produced good numbers of the commoner woodland species, including plenty of Oriental Turtle Doves.

The shrine itself was not only beautiful but very peaceful early morning, though this had changed by the time I passed again 90 minutes later. As the name would suggest it is a shrine dedicated to Emperor Meiji and seems extremely popular with both tourists and locals alike.

The more open areas on the north side of the park produced a slightly different selection of species, including my first Bull-headed Shrike and a showy pair of Black-backed Wagtails, one of which posed for photos.

Black-backed Wagtail

A few Spot-billed Ducks were floating inanely on the nearby pond, Pale Thrush was seemingly quite common and I glimpsed a Goshawk flying over. Japanese White-eyes afforded some of the best views I had all trip, though I never managed any pleasing photographs.

Japanese White-eye

With the 9 am opening time approaching, I headed back to the gardens south of the shrine. Not only does this area tend to be quieter (a 500 ¥ entrance fee seems to put the masses off) but the birds here are fed regularly, meaning they're much more confiding. Indeed, the Varied Tits feed out of people's hands while my first Black-faced Buntings fearlessly scrubbed around on the floor to within a few feet.

Black-faced Buntings at Meiji Jingū

Varied Tit - another species I failed to photograph satisfactorily, this being my only decent image

My main target here was Grey Bunting, a species that can be elusive and therefore tricky to catch up with. Various items of gen I'd gleaned suggested that the buntings visit the seed put out for them but that didn't seem to be the case today - just the flock of Black-faced plus a couple of brief Oriental Greenfinches. Wandering around the various trails I eventually found a pair of Grey Buntings feeding in the inflow channel at the east end of the main pond, giving distant (but decent) views just in time for the arrival of Rich and Mick, who'd flown in overnight from Vienna.

Back at the seeded area females of Red-flanked Bluetail and Daurian Redstart appeared before our cue to leave for Haneda airport, where we saw a female Blue Rock Thrush a short while before catching a late afternoon flight to Kagoshima, on the southern island of Kyushu.

Japan day one: Osaka Baer's & back to Tokyo

This is the first in a series of photo-heavy blog posts diarising a birding trip to Japan over the Christmas and New Year period. After each daily entry has been published on my blog I intend to conglomerate these to produce a PDF trip report, which will be available at a later date.

19 December 2015

After having arrived in Japan and travelled down to Osaka the previous afternoon, this was my first full day in Japan - and my intention was to spend as long as was necessary to see the drake Baer's Pochard, which I'd dipped in Suminoe Park in the ebbing light of the previous afternoon.

Happily, the bird was back on its favoured swimming pool at first light and I spent much of the morning watching this excellent duck before heading back to Tokyo at about lunchtime. This bird is notorious for coming out of eclipse quite late - when it turns up (usually mid to late November) it tends to look a real mess, gradually acquiring breeding plumage through December and looking more or less perfect by the end of the year. It was looking good today, although close views revealed that there were still a few mucky brown specks among the largely green sheen to the head. At first it remained quite distant and only briefly came close, spending much of its time asleep and in poor light to boot.

Leaving the duck I had a walk round the park to see what else was about. Highlights included a couple of Pale and several Dusky Thrushes as well as a number of quite tame Oriental Turtle Doves.

I returned to the swimming pool to find the pochard still fast asleep at the far end, so decided to grab some breakfast and my luggage from the hotel. Forty-five minutes later and I was back at the pool to find the sun shining and the bird, very much awake, motoring towards me! Of course as soon as I got the camera out it put its head away, swam to the near corner, hauled itself out and began to roost once more. The views were absolutely crippling - all I needed was for it to wake up!

Eventually it gave in to my wishes, woke up, had a preen and did a very close swim past on the near side of the pool. My opportunity was brief and I overexposed many of the images due to the dappled light caused by the trees behind, but some were thankfully salvageable. The difficulty in getting any sort of decent shots here is exacerbated by having to shoot through a chain link fence, which can cause a bit of havoc with auto-focus.

Soon enough the bird was asleep again, so I decided to pack up and jump on the Shinkansen back to Tokyo, arriving there mid-afternoon. The evening was spent exploring Asakusa and Ueno before I went to check in at a capsule hotel in Ginza. Tokyo is a fantastic city and I just wish I'd had more time to look round - though no doubt I'll be back at some point in the future.

Sensō-ji, Tokyo