Kamchatka!
That's interesting. Arctic is a very common singer on passage here in Hong Kong. But ours are (mostly?) Arctic, so maybe that's a difference from Japanese/Kamchatka. They don't seem to be coming through yet this spring - I haven't heard any reports so far in HK, they're quite a late migrant.
I don't think I've ever heard Eastern Crowned in HK, either calling or singing. They're usually silent here, but presumably more vocal when they get closer to breeding grounds.
Hi John.
Well, I don't go around the country chasing birds as some do, but I go to my local little patch often (and other local spots, and occasionally a bit further away) and walk through the little wood where the guys with the 800mm lenses don't go mostly. On this patch (about 2km walk around a couple of ponds and some light woodland in the middle of our city - Nara, Japan's first capital, and much more fun than Kyoto) I have seen 125 species in ten years, ten or so only once of course, and still new species come. This year (2017) we have had Garganey and White's Thrush as new additions to the list.
Today I found Blue-and-White Flycatcher (only the second time for me in this spot). We get a few 'Arctic' every spring and autumn - none so far this year. After I realised that the split was serious, I started trying to record the voices with a voice recorder a couple of years ago. Of ten or so recordings, all were Kamchatka.
Last year, there were (Arctic spp I think) birds in late August and early September, which I think would not be Kamchatka (probably Japanese Leaf), since Kamchatka come through around mid-October. But these early birds didn't make a sound, so who knows?
KAMCHATKA
Completely off-topic, but speaking of Kamchatka: a few months ago my wife and I made plans for a really exciting Golden Week Holiday. There's a ferry from Tottori in Japan to a port on the east of South Korea and then to Vladivostok in Russia (well, yes, Kamchatka is a long way north of there, but it's still Russia). So we can do some pelagic viewing on this ferry. Then from Vladivostok we would fly to Irkutsk on Lake Baikal, and after three nights there, fly to Seoul in South Korea for a couple of nights and then back to Japan.
After we had booked this, the South Koreans impeached their president. The election will be on the 9th May and we'll be in Seoul on the 6th and 7th. The South Koreans can get 'enthusiatic' about politics, so we were worried about possible violent riots in Seoul at that time.
And now of course the main worry is that our ferry will sail right past the North Korean missile testing ground at Sinpo and one of the nuclear test sites at Punggye-ri on its way to Vladivostok.
Well, I guess we'll hope that the ferry company won't go if they think there is a great danger - but on the other hand South Korea doesn't have a proper government at the moment, and anyway any strike would not be announced. We're really considering whether to just throw the tickets away and lose the money, or whether to go anyway and hope for the best.
