Tobishima Island, Sea of Japan (1 Viewer)

Tobishima, Japan


Tobishima, 'Jumping Island', off the Japan Sea coast of northern Honshu, is one of a loose line of offshore islands from Kyushu to Hokkaido which are of particular interest to Japanese birders. They are vagrant traps: in the spring and fall, when mainland migrants stray from the coasts of Korea, China or Russia, these islands are their first landfall. They vary in size from Sado (860 sq. km.) to Hegurajima (1 sq. km.),and are all reachable by ferry in from one to three hours, incidentally offering an opportunity for some pelagic birding, though this is not as exciting as off the open Pacific coast.

Sakata, the departure port for Tobishima, is an hour's flight and 15,000 yen from Tokyo; it is a small city, and the ferry dock is just half an hour from the airport. The ferry trip lasts 90 minutes and costs 2000 yen, 900 yen more if you want to sit on the second deck, which you do: you cannot get to the bow, but with a fellow birder and no other wealthy passengers (the local birders huddle below amidships with the smokers, and peer over the gunwales), you can work both sides of the boat very nicely. In early May you may still get many of the loons, shearwaters and alcids of this part of the world, and the endemic target, Japanese Murrelet is usually seen. The ferry is not big, and if the weather is rough, those prone to mal de mer should take precautions.

Tobishima, a little over 8 sq. km. in area, consists of a small fishing village of perhaps 100 residents, with a diesel power plant and a couple of small inns (but no shop of any kind) lining the harbour; the central island ridge above the village, along which a 3-km. paved road extends, bordered by truck gardens; and the relatively-undisturbed rest of the island, with foot trails among mature black pine and deciduous forest featuring some outstandingly beautiful pines, maples and oaks. Two rock islets are breeding grounds for Black-tailed Gulls.

Nagoshi Inn, a few steps from the ferry landing, is very modest by Japanese standards, but it is clean and pleasant, has a nice hot bath and, thank God, western-style toilets. It costs 8000 yen a night with breakfast and dinner, both delicious for those who love seafood. They will make little rice-ball lunches to carry with you in the morning. Inn reservations should be made well ahead, and far, far ahead during spring and fall national holidays. Nagoshi Inn can be reached (no English spoken) at 0234-95-2004. Drop the initial zero when calling from overseas.

The task of the birder is simply to spend the day-- in late April to early May from about 4:30 in the morning to 5:30 in the evening-- wandering casually back and forth along the trunk road and trails looking for the one or two individuals of any of the 200 species that have been recorded on this tiny island and that may be there at the moment.

There is a tiny dam, collecting rainwater in a tiny ravine, just above Nagoshi Inn, and this is a good starting point at dawn, where a Japanese Night Heron may have spent the night, or a Mugimaki Flycatcher has come down to bathe. Then, following the steps on up to the ridge, you meet the sun and one or two fishermen's wives, who have come up to tend their gardens. There seem to be no young people on the island-- they have all gone off to seek fame and fortune in Tokyo-- only gnarled old men, who have already set off in their boats in the dark before dawn, and their bent, bonneted wives, who either nod a slight greeting or ignore you. In May the new shoots are up and the gardens netted over and festooned with scarecrows. One patch sports a dead, gibbeted Whiskered Auklet, hung as a warning to other Whiskered Auklets who might be tempted to raid the young potato plants. This area you scour carefully for bunting and pipits: some 30 species have been found here.

Passing out of this cultivated area, the mixed woodland can be searched for cuckoos (4 sp.), thrushes (17 sp.), warblers, (12 sp.) and flycatchers (10 sp.). Endemics and near-endemics like Japanese Woodpigeon, Japanese Waxwing, Japanese Accentor, Latham's Snipe, Japanese Yellow Bunting, Red-cheeked Starling, Japanese Robin, Grey Bunting all appear here commonly in migration, but Japanese birders are looking for Hoopoe, Wryneck, Blythe’s Pipit, Swinhoe's Robin, Siberian Rubythroat, Black-throated Thrush, Radde's Warbler.

Returning to the village in the late afternoon, you can look for a short-toed lark or a Japanese Wagtail in the waste lots dockside, study Temminck’s Cormorants along the breakwater, watch the locals spreading seaweed or filleted fish out to dry on bamboo mats, or spend 30 seconds exploring a Yayoi period burial crevice, the island’s lone cultural attraction. If you're just plain tired, go soak in the bath, order two bottles of Kirin with dinner, and go to bed early. There's nothing to do after dark except listen to the Brown Hawk Owls quietly hoo-hooing from the trees.

All in all, a laid-back birding experience. We got 86 species in 2½ days, May 10-12, 2003 (list appended).


SPECIES

Temminck's (Japanese) Cormorant
Pelagic Cormorant
Great Cormorant
Mallard
Spot-billed (Grey) Duck
Common Teal
Eurasian Wigeon
Japanese Murrelet
Rhinoceros Auklet
Streaked Shearwater
Pomerine Jaeger
Herring (Vega) Gull
Slaty-backed Gull
Black-tailed Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Glaucous Gull
Common Tern
Black-crowned Night Heron
Intermediate Egret
Grey Heron
Great Egret
Common Sandpiper
Latham's (Japanese) Snipe
Northern (Red-necked) Phalarope
Black Kite
Northern Sparrowhawk
Peregrine Falcon
Brown Hawk Owl
Japanese Wood Pigeon
Rufous (Oriental) Turtle Dove
Rock Dove
Oriental Cuckoo
Northern White-rumped (Fork-tailed) Swift
Greater Short-toed Lark
Barn Swallow
Red-rumped Swallow
Grey Wagtail
Black-backed Wagtail
Japanese Wagtail
Red-throated Pipit
Indian Tree (Olive-backed) Pipit
Ashy Minivet
Brown-eared Bulbul
Bull-headed Shrike
Japanese Waxwing
Bohemian Waxwing
Siberian Blue Robin
Red-flanked Bluetail
Daurian Redstart
Common Stonechat
Blue Rock Thrush
Siberian Thrush
White's Ground Thrush
Brown Thrush
Grey-headed (Eye-browed) Thrush
Grey-backed Thrush
Pale Thrush
Dusky Thrush
Japanese Bush Warbler
Arctic Warbler
Eastern Crowned (Willow) Warbler
Narcissus Flycatcher
Mugimaki Flycatcher
Tricolor (Korean) Flycatcher
Blue-and-White Flycatcher
Asian Brown Flycatcher
Grey-spotted Flycatcher
Coal Tit
Great Tit
Japanese White-eye
Siberian Meadow Bunting
Rustic Bunting
Black-faced Bunting
Japanese Yellow Bunting
Grey Bunting
Oriental Greenfinch
Siskin
Brambling
Japanese Grosbeak
Hawfinch
Cinnamon (Russet) Sparrow
Eurasian Tree Sparrow
Red-cheeked Starling
Grey (White-cheeked) Starling
Rook
Carrion Crow
Jungle Crow

FOR 2004 TRIP RESULTS, SEE LATER POSTING IN THIS THREAD.

Great report Charles. Your list has me drooling!

dennis

Hi Charles-wow seems like a good place to go birding. Lots of stuff I haven`t seen up here in Hokkaido.
Have you ever been up this neck of the woods? Hakodate-yama is also a good place for migrants (though not as good as the place you`ve described).........

Thanks for the report Charles, I am green with envy!

Sounds mouth watering! and looks like a very nice place, I love small islands, thye birding is often good and they are usually peacefull!

Come in the spring, folks, there are enough islands for everybody! Japan may not have the most birds, but it's got the safest birding-- only place I know where you can feel free to leave your scope on the road while you wander into the woods after that LBJ, and know that it'll still be there when you get back.

Good birding,

Ah you have never been to the Scillies then? I do that all the time there, I'm sure one day I'll come back and it will have gone!

Paul, how do you make your bat fly?

Charles,

I'm afraid I cheated. I found this animated gif file on the web and borrowed it. I have never attempted to create one of these (yet) so am unable to provide an answer, though others may have the info.

Paul

Charles Harper said:

Japan may not have the most birds, but it's got the safest birding-- only place I know where you can feel free to leave your scope on the road while you wander into the woods after that LBJ, and know that it'll still be there when you get back.

Click to expand...

You'll also get away with that in Iceland, although we don't have that many woods to wander in. If you leave any alcohol lying around though, then you can kiss that goodbye!

Fascinating report, Charles.

E

Too bad, I wanted to make my ears flap. Well, gentlemen, I guess I'll have to try to conquer my paranoia and get out to some other safe countries for birding. Iraq ought to be safe in a couple of more weeks.

Thanks and good birding,

2004 Tobishima Trip Results

We undertook a second trip to Tobishima May 2-4, 2004. Other things being equal, we expected a difference in migratory species composition, which we got. Since it is such a small island, there is a good bit of serendipity involved as to what may drop in at any particular time. But also, because of the often small numbers of individuals of a species sighted, there is also the serendipity-- or skill-- of finding them; and because of unequal experience, there is the chance of non- or mis-identification. The second year, the new British member of our team increased considerably our ability to identify the Phylloscopus warblers and pointed out our misidentification of pale-primaried first year Slaty-backed Gulls as Glaucous-wings.

We had extremely inclement weather the third day-- rain and buffeting wind-- which lowered our third-day count, and we finished with 84 species, compared to 86 in May 2003. Adding up the two lists, however, gave us 111 species over the two trips. In addition to the 2003 list above, we recorded in 2004:

Black-throated and Pacific Divers, Red-necked Grebe, Common Guillemot, Ancient Murrelet, Black-headed Gull, Cattle Egret, Little Ringed Plover, Swinhoe's Snipe, Eurasian Kestrel, Common Kingfisher, Hoopoe, Eurasian/Japanese Skylark, Buff-bellied Pipit, Japanese Robin, Siberian Rubythroat, Northern Wheatear, Short-tailed Bush Warbler, Oriental Reed Warbler, Pale-legged Warbler, Varied Tit, Chestnut-eared and Tristram's Buntings, Common Reed Bunting, and Eurasian Bullfinch.

(Of course, contrariwise, in 2004, we missed 26 species that we had seen in 2003.)

By the way, I discovered that 'Tobishima' does not mean 'Black Kite Island', even though 'tobi' is the Japanese name of that species and the birds are conspicuous in their constant attendance there. It means 'Jumping Island' (another reading of 'tobi') because it is considered in myth to have sprung from the ancient eruption of nearby Mt. Chokaisan.

Take me take me!!! I'd love to get to grips with all those Sibes!

Hi Charles. Including our pottering around on the mainland the next day and birds seen from the train I got 95 species for the 4 days (I missed a few on the island when I wimped out and went back to our guesthouse when it was pouring down). Hokkaido next year? Or something more exotic?