Intermediate Egret 103 up (1 Viewer)

I didn`t really go birding today.......but there was a surprising visitor to the small river near my appartment-an Intermediate Egret!!! Just minding its own business and flushed by my good wife. There were also loads of (Asian?) House Martin, Spot Billed Duck and Black Backed Wagtail with young, Red Cheeked Starling and a pair of Oriental Great Reed Warbler.....

Personally speaking from mid June is usually a fairly fallow period for birding.......I was thinking of maybe finding some new spots. There`s nowt on the beach and the forested cape is beginning to get busy with packs of Japanese retirees. There are some mountains behind my appartment-only about 3 or 4 km away. I might (laziness permitting) climb up to escape the summer heat and hopefully get some of the hill/forest birds I missed out on during spring migration.

Intermedate not so common up there, eh? They almost equal Greats in the countryside down here in the summer, even some winterers. Let us know what you get up the hill. And congratulations on 112!

Hi Charles-according to my ancient "Field Guide to the Birds of Japan" there are NO Egrets at all in Hokkaido. Actually those distribution nmaps are wildly inaccurate. I dunno if that's because bird populations have changed since it was published or if they were inaccurate in the first place (I don't think I found a Hokkaido rarity!). Which Japanese language fieldguide do you use? Does it have good maps?

Stu, I use the English language antique for the text (plus the notes I've added over the years) and my wife's '630- A Guide for Birdlovers' for the illustrations and maps (can't read the text of course-- can't even seem to learn the kanji for 'winter' and 'breeding'!) I think the maps were pretty good for what they knew then, but there's been a lot more record-taking since, and also I'm sure habitat is disappearing... and maybe birds turning into yakitori in the Philippines too. I'm very frustrated at how many species are listed as 'common', but that I haven't seen anywhere-- Brown Shrike, Common Quail, Jungle Nightjar, Ruddy Kingfisher, Sakhalin Warbler spring to mind. Just about every species in that book can be down-graded a notch in indicated abundance, I think. Have you got Mark Brazil's 'Birds of Japan'? It isn't a field guide but it has much better and more detailed information, and good maps in the back. Good for taxonomy too.

Went to city hall and picked up standard 'roadmap' type maps for my ward ('-ku')-- I think the scale is accurate enough to be used as a basis for my 'patch' map, but I'll have to re-draw it to indicate ground cover, etc. They've got a gigantic aerial photo of the ward (incl. my forest) hanging in the lobby, but it's 20 years old, and there's been considerable change.

Hope everyone else finds this chat of interest. Sorry!