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.