Fall Geese

The last couple weeks have been nice for seeing geese around Osatsunuma and Utonai Ko where I have been helping out with their fall goose counting. The numbers are less impressive than springs numbers when waiting for the ice to melt farther north they all back up in nice flocks totaling around 80,000 geese. In the fall the count is smaller (2,000 total) but the possibility for seeing rare geese seems to increase. On 10/17 I saw a Swan Goose at Osatsunuma which made its way to the news paper on the 22nd, and on the 19th I also found a Lesser white-fronted Goose in the same flock. I am guessing they are both around Osatsunuma still, but the Swan Goose tends to be absent from the area occasionally, sometimes turning up at Utonai Ko.

Here are a few pictures.

Swan Goose

Lesser white-fronted Goose imm.

Teuri fall 2008

It has been a while since I have updated this.
First is a list from this falls trip to Teuri island from 10/3-10/5. The highlights for me were the Gray-spotted Flycatchers, Lapland Longspur, Red-throated Pipit, Pine Bunting, Yellow-browed Warbler, and the Yellow Wagtail. It was probably the least bird rich of the three trips so far, but I succeeded in seeing the Red-throated Pipit and Yellow Wagtail and other members of the family which I have missed when I went later. I was surprised that the Longspurs and Pine Buntings were there already, but finches, other than the Oriental Green Finch were absent.

Arctic Warbler 2 Bean Goose 20 Black-backed Wagtail 10 Black-faced Bunting 50+ Black-headed Gull 2 Black-legged Kittiwake 1 Black-tailed Gull 100+ Brambling 50 Brown Flycatcher 3 Carrion Crow 20 Coal Tit 5 Crowned willow Warbler 1 Dunlin 1 Dusky Thrush 50 Eurasian Skylark 20 Eurasian Sparrowhawk 3 Eye-browed Thrush 1 Glaucous-winged Gull 3 Goldcrest 5 Gray Wagtail Great Tit 10 Great-spotted Woodpecker 3 Green-winged Teal 2 Grey Spotted Flycatcher 10 Harlequin Duck 7 Herring Gull 30+ Indian-tree Pipit 5 Japanese Bush Warbler 20 Japanese White-eye 20 Jungle Crow 50+ Lapland Longspur 2 Long-tailed Rosyfinch 5 Northern Hobby 2 Oriental Greenfinch 100+ Palagic Cormorant 50+ Peregrine Falcon 1 Pine Bunting 3 Red-throated Pipit 3 Rufous Turtle Dove 10 Rustic Bunting 20 Slatty-backed Gull 100+ Sooty Flycatcher 2 Sooty/short-tailed Shearwater 15 Stonechat 2 Teminicks Cormorant 100+ Tree Sparrow 30 Varied Tit 10 Water Pipit 6 Yellow Wagtail 1 Yellow-browed Warbler 1 Yellow-throated Bunting 2

Teuri island information

Just wanted to provide some information about Teuri island off of NW Hokkaido for those who are interested in visiting. First of all a few useful websites to visit to get some information.
The first website has some useful bird information in English and a some check lists of migratory birds that have been recorded there. The list does not seem very exhaustive as I have already seen a species or two not on the list, but it does give an idea of what has been seen when. The second website is in Japanese and is the Haboro home page. Haboro is the town that the ferry service runs out of. There is some good information about the ferry schedules and price and accommodations on the island.

http://www.teuri.jp/E_index.html

http://www.haboro.tv/top.html

One note on the accomidations, if you are interested in camping, there is a free nondescript camp site about 5 min walk from the ferry port. It is technicaly open from May until September, but I used it off season in October and everyone I talked to (including the resident police officer) was ok with me being there. There is a biff, a small prefab shelter and water available. Of which the shelter and the water are not available off season. There is water available at the ferry terminal though. There is a place to build a fire and plenty of trash heaps to glean wood from. To get to the camp site (Ronbaba is the name of the camp and "beach" area) walk through the port to the SW and along a road that climbs a hill out of the port area. Half way up the hill turn left on a gravel track. Pass some abandon houses and you will see the biff. One word of caution, there is nothing romantic about the camping, but it is quite private as very few people pass along the gravel track. Bird wise it is a good area to use as a base as I have seen quite a few interesting birds just around there and the NE end of the island tends to be more easily accessed for birding for the migrants.
If you are not interested in camping here are a number of minshuku and ryokan around the island and the Haboro web site has information about them.

The ferry service tends to cancel service if the swells are over 3m. Be warned that if you make a fall trip in particular, the weather determines if you are able to get to the island...or get off of the island for that matter. My first visit in mid October last year was four full days longer than expected. It does make for a great extended vacation though.... The island does have birders visiting it, but seemingly quite few outside of Golden Week and early summer sea bird watchers. I was probably the only tourist of any type in the fall, and one of about 10 other birders on my trip this May.

During the 6 day visit last fall 10/18-24 some of the more interesting species I saw were:
Pallas's willow Warbler
Lapland Longspur
Palla's Rosy Finch
Yellow-throated Bunting
Gray Bunting
Pine Bunting (saw a small group of them almost every day I was there)
Bullfinch (many of the bright pink breasted subspecies
Siberian Accentor
Eye-browed Thrush
Daurian Jackdaw
Mugimaki Flycatcher

Some of the more common birds around were Common Redpolls, Siskins, Dusky Thrushes, and Red-flanked Bluetail. To see a list of the birds I saw this may just look down a few posts.

Hope the information is useful to those of you interested. Just jot me a comment if you want more information.

Nishioka suigenchi koen

Went to Nishioka koen on the 23rd and saw mostly the usual residents with a few new arrivals for the year. At least new for me as I have not been doing as much birding lately as I would like.
Some of the highlights were:
Narcissus Flycatchers (many)
Blue-and-white Flycatchers (many)
Brown Flycatchers
Asian Stubtail
Common Kingfisher
Gray Thrush (few calling...probably being mid day?)
Japanese Grosbeak (many)
Red-flanked Bluetail
Japanese Green Pigeon (new for the year)
Oriental Cuckoo
Siberian Blue Robin (new for the year, calling male located about 3km walk past the lake)
Honey Buzzard (flying over)
Common Sandpipers

Other birds of interest lately were: I heard my first Common Cuckoo of the year behind my house on the 22nd, and I saw a flock of about 10 Needle-tailed Swifts near a small park in S. Sapporo, also my first for the year. In the same area I heard about 5-6 Sakhalin leaf Warblers while walking between two small waterfalls near Fureai no mori.

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.

5/2/08

Today my brother was visiting from the U.S. so we took a drive down to Osatsunuma and Utonai ko.
Osatsunuma had as low of water as I have ever seen it. There were a few shorebirds around but more scarce than I was hoping.

Little-ringed plovers 10
Latham's Snipe 1
Wood Sandpiper 1

We continued down to Utonai ko where there were:
Falcated Teal 25
Common Teal 20
Gadwall 2
Mute Swan (on nest) 2
Common Merganser 30
Wryneck (calling) 1
Crowned-willow Warblers 10 (calling)
Gray Thrush
Japanese White-eye 10
Marsh Harrier 1
Black-faced Buntings 30
Common Read Buntings 10
Long-tailed Rosy Finch 3

The prize of the day was off on a side road near Utonai ko where it dead-ended in a small grave yard. There was some commotion from the small birds in the area and I soon found out why when a Japanese lesser Sparrowhawk flew buy and perched for a while for a good look.

First post

This is my inaugural post. For those of you who expect much in the future, my apologies. I do some birding in my free time so I will be posting what I have seen for the benefit of all who see it. Your bird related comments and questions are welcome.

Some birds that I have not heard in quite a while are starting to call. Japanese Bush Warbler, Japanese Grosbeak, and Gray Thrush. On 4/27 I went to Nopporo Shinrinkoen and walked the trails in the southern half of the park. There I saw:

Japanese Grosbeak 1
GrayThrush 2
White's Ground Thrush 1
Black-faced Bunting 30
Gray Bunting 4
Siskin 100+
Mandarin Duck 2
Japanese Bush Warbler 4
Siberian Bluechat 5

At Osatsunuma there was plenty of mud along the banks of the river area and a few shorebirds.
Birds I saw in this area included:

Wood Sandpiper 4
Latham's Snipe 6
Rufous-necked Stint 1
Little-ringed Plover 20
Water Pipit 6
Stonechat 5

Also, in the fields outside of the town of Kitahiroshima I saw my first Gray-headed Bunting of the year.