Japan Feb/March 2016 (1 Viewer)

Another stunning report - thank you.

Phil

A wonderful series. The treeful of eagles - however grip-worthy - must be worth a painting!
Adding Ural Owl to Steller's Eagle and the Rosefinch is just kicking a man when he's well and truly down!

Looking foreword to seeing what else you got!

Cheers
Mike

Cheers....and sorry, Mike

28th Feb – We had stayed overnight at the JAL City Hotel, making use of their late night free shuttle bus and after a good night's sleep with a sneaky lie-in we were ready to go by mid-morning. The helpful staff on the front desk pointed us in the right direction for the trains we needed to catch. It was all fairly straightforward and we lugged our bags to the nearest station.

Upon reaching Tokyo Central we booked our return ticken on the shinkansen to Karuizawa. The train is cool There isn't much room for large baggage so beware...we were lucky as it wasn't that busy. The carriage is more akin to an aircraft cabin and when the thing finally gets out of the city and opens up it just glides noiselessly along at just over 200mph!! It only took a couple of hours to reach Karuizawa station where we changed trains onto the local line to get to Naka-Karuizawa, one stop up the line and our final destination.

From the station it was c10mins to walk to our accommodation for the next two nights – the charming Bell's Cabin. As we walked through the nice-looking town situated in the shadow of the smoking Mount Asama (last erupted June 2015!) we had our first Oriental Greenfinches, many Brown-eared Bulbuls and Tree Sparrows, Oriental Turtle-Doves, Black-backed Wags and a female Daurian Redstart. Upon arrival, as check-in isn't allowed until 1600 we asked if we could leave our bags anyway and the warm & welcoming owner Kiyofumi said it was no problem and gave us a map showing the way to the Wild Bird Forest (Yacho-no-mori).

As it turned out it was an easy 1.9km walk away so off we set albeit with low expectations as it was now 1400 and the weather wasn't brilliant. Walking the narrow roads through the town and forest we had 2 Eastern Buzzards, 3 Black-eared Kites, several Meadow Buntings and our first Japanese Jays (another potential split...and they do look rather striking). As the path followed the road up the hill and through the more wooded parts we had several Great Spots and Japanese Pygmy-Woods, Varied, Coal and Willow Tits also. As the minor road joined the main highway 146 again we had a Grey Heron and Brown Dipper in the fast-flowing river running parallel with the road.

Turning off the main road by the Hoshino Resort we wandered along the road past the Picchio Nature Centre and soon found the forest entrance easily enough where the tarmac turns to gravel. A Japanese Giant Flyimg-Squirrel poked its head out of a nestbox briefly but that was the only time we actually saw it...but the road signs warning of low-flying squirrels are brilliant! Again due to the mild winter there really wasn't that much snow around (still lots by my Southern England standards!) but reading previous reports of people trudging through knee-deep snow we were lucky! But this did have a downside in that there weren't a great deal of birds around really, no rosefinches or waxwings.

So we spent a couple of hours wandering along the Kose Rindo (the gravel road) and up one of the snowy tracks to the Misosazai Resthouse but all we had were the usual suspects: Varied, Willow, Coal, Long-tailed and Jap Tits, Nuthatch, Great Spot and Jap Pygmy-Woods, Brown-eared Bulbuls and a Dusky Thrush. The Brown Dipper flew up and down the river a couple of times.

We had a quick walk further up the main road to Shiotsubo Onsen where we followed the paved road down the main carpark. Here there is a small pond with feeders....no accentor but a couple of Wrens were new for the trip. Also here were yet more Varied, Coal and Willow Tits. We wandered back towards our accommodation and came across a small family group of Japanese Macaques around the wooded hillside part of the walk back, climbing around the houses....much to the annoyance of one owner who came out and shot something at the big male who beat a hasty retreat.

Back at Bell's, we were shown our renovated double room which had a good-sized bed in it and a sofa that was perfect for dumping our gear on – in fact, at the end of our stay it's fair to say that Kiyofumi would've been forgiven for thinking our room had actually been ransacked by burglars....! Free wifi was fairly quick and reliable but although facilities are shared this wasn't actually a problem now as maybe it could be in the summer when they are really busy. For dinner we wandered into town and actually had trouble finding somewhere open....we finally found a local Chinese restaurant near the bridge where, with help from the owner's teenage daughter who spoke some English, we managed to order some lovely beef, rice and beer.