Wednesday, May 14, 2008

5/9-12 Teuri Trip

From 5/9-12 I took a trip to Teuri island located off the coast of NW Hokkaido to look for the more unusual migrants that happened to be that close to Japan. I went with my brother who enjoyed, more than the birds, the old buildings abandon by fishermen leaving the island after the fisheries collapsed, from what I hear, around 1960. It was a quite wonderful trip with 81 species and about 7 fairly rare species typically not resident or found in Japan very regularly. We spent the nights in a small prefab building at a free camp ground, seemingly made for the purpose of helping out weather beaten campers. It was a very nice upgrade from a tent as the weather was quite cold with a sometimes gusty north wind. The weather factor seemed to stall migration for my visit, but I was content to roam the island searching for new species.

Below is a list of the birds I saw on the island or on the ferry en route.

Black Kite 1
White-tailed Eagle 1
Spectacled Guillemot 10
Great Scaup 25
Red-breasted Merganser 20
White-winged Scotter 2
Harlequin Duck 25
Spotbilled Duck 1
Gray Heron 1
Rufous Turtle Dove 10
Carrion Crow 20
Jungle Crow 100+
Siberian meadow Bunting 10
Gray Bunting 4
Rustic Bunting 15
Little Bunting 1
Yellow-browed Bunting 1
Yellow-throat ed Bunting 1
Gray-headed Bunting 3
Yellow-browed Bunting 1
Yellow-breasted Bunting 1
Peregrine Falcon 1
Brambling 100
Oriental Greenfinch 100+
Siskin 50
Common Redpoll 20
Bulfinch 10
Hawfinch 20
Long-tailed Rosyfinch 6
Black-throated Loon
10
Red-throated Loon
4
Pacific Loon 40
Barn Swallow 1
Bull-headed Shrike 1
Slatty-backed Gull 100+
Herring Gull 20
Glaucous Gull 10
Glaucous-winged Gull 2
Black-backed Wagtail 20
Indian-tree Pipit 5
Dusky Thrush 100+
Siberian Ruby Throat 50
Gray Thrush 20
Siberian Bluechat 10
Blue Rockthrush 3
Red-breasted Flycatcher 2
Brown Thrush 10
Stonechat 15
Blue and white Flycatcher 2
Eye-browed Thrush 5
Pale Thrush 4
Narcissus Flycatcher 2
Japanese Robin 1
Tricolor Flycatcher 1
Great Tit 5
Coal Tit 30
Varied Tit 5
Pelagic Cormorant 50
Teminicks Cormorant 400
Wryneck 10
Great-spotted Woodpecker 4
Tree Sparrow 30
Russet Sparrow 5
Short-tailed Shearwater 1000
Sooty Shearwater 50
Gold Crest 10
Common Snipe 2
Latham's Snipe 3
Common Sandpiper 1
Eurasian Woodcock 1
Brown Hawk Owl 1
Red-cheeked Starling 20
Oriental reed Warbler 1
Japanese Bush Warbler 20
Arctic Warbler 15
Pallas's Willow Warbler 4
Crowned willow Warbler 2
Pale-legged Warbler 1
Yellow-browed Warbler
Hoopoe
1
1
Japanese White-eye 30

The one new bird for me was the Yellow-browed Bunting, and the Hoopoe was also a new one for me for Japan. Interestingly the Pallas's Warbler is starting to seem less rare on this island. The local birders seem to talk about it fairly normally, and so far I have seen it on both of my trips to the island! I suppose being close to Sakhalin island where it breads helps with that. The species that were the most exciting were: Pallas's Warbler, Yellow-browed Bunting, Hoopoe, Yellow-browed Warbler, Little Bunting, Red-breasted Flycatcher and the Tricolor Flycatcher. The naumanni sub sp. or Dusky Thrush and a very interesting male of the Black-faced Bunting with no yellow were also quite interesting. Possibly this was a sub species of the Black-faced Bunting? Something I must do more research on.

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