Japan: Kansai and Okinawa, 4-20 July 2013 (1 Viewer)

Kansai Airport and Kyoto

Thursday 4th July
Having got up at 5:00am Carrie and I arrived at the vast but mostly empty Kansai Airport from Hong Kong on the cheerfully cheap but painfully early Air India flight at 1:00 pm. Japan’s Shinkansen bullet trains may be the wonder of the world, but when your overtired and underfed their local trains take FOREVER!

Despite the pedestrian speed there were at least a few birds to be gleaned from the odd park, rice field and overhead wire. Most prominent were the coal-black Carrion Crows, mostly in pairs, and somehow managing to lurk and swagger at the same time – the very picture of the bullying kleptocrat. Barn Swallows, the odd White-cheeked Starling and Brown-eared Bulbuls popped up from time to time, along with four or five pairs of Oriental Turtle Doves. A couple of Great Egrets showed up superbly against the fresh green rice on one of the larger patches of paddy between the houses. Two Grey Herons flew north, and another shared some sort of large industrial frame with an unexpected adult Black-tailed Gull. The best bird was probably the Grey-headed Lapwing that came off a field somewhere between Osaka and Kyoto.

Friday 5th July
After a leisurely start we headed out to Arashiyama – a quieter suburb of Kyoto with several world-class pieces of cultural heritage on the western edge of the city. The walk through a massive grove of tall bamboos was atmospheric, if largely birdless, but the park next to the river began to deliver. Several Brown-eared Bulbuls called before finally showing themselves, while the local Japanese White-eyes looked duller and slightly larger-billed than the race we get in Hong Kong. Barn Swallows hawked over the river, which held a couple of pairs of Chinese Spotbills, half-a-dozen Great Cormorants, a couple of Little Egrets and singleton Great Egret and Grey Heron. A couple of Black Kites wheeled across the steep, well forested hillsides, and while looking across the river and eating fabulous cold soba noodles a fine Japanese Wagtail – just my second ever - dropped onto a grass-covered island in mid-stream.

After lunch we plunged back in to the heat and headed up the winding path to Monkey Mountain. Despite the humidity it was cooler, but rather birdless in the shade of the forest. Calling Brown-eared Bulbuls and Oriental Turtle Doves competed warily with the short-tailed Japanese Macaques for food. This monkey feeding is better organized than any I’ve seen. The humans can buy food inside a carefully closed hut and fed the monkeys diced apple or peanuts through wire across the windows. The big surprise here was seeing the shining blue back of a Common Kingfisher disappearing into the trees from the edge of the pond by the feeding station.

A rest stop at the bottom of the hill provided the real highlight of the day as first a family party of Japanese Tits and some Japanese White-eyes and then a gang of young Long-tailed Tits came feeding through the riverside trees. I was surprised at how broad and brown are the facial markings of the latter, reminding me strongly of Sooty Tits from central China. They fed close-by for a good quarter of an hour. Before they moved on I was delighted to find first a washed-out-looking juvenile Varied Tit and then a tiny Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker trailing along with the mixed flock that now numbered well over 50 birds. A solitary Grey Wagtail picking its way along a concrete-sided stream between two rows of houses and my second unidentified falcon of the day flying away from the train drew proceedings to a close.

Cheers
Mike

Nice report! I'm a bit jealous of your Grey headed Lapwing, I'd been hoping to see at least one new wader while I was there but it wasn't to be...

The Japanese macaque's are epic and so the sign board. Never been the fan of Air India, as you said they are painfully earlier and transit times are longer ;-) Love to hear the rest of the trip, Mike.

Sunday 7th July
After another basically birdless day seeing some admittedly spectacular temples in Kyoto we headed south to Kumano Hongu, a riverside village built around an important shrine n a famous pilgrim’s trail. The Lonely Planet commentary claims that walking the trail “is like copulating with the universe”. I guess whoever proposed that is neither a birder nor familiar with the birder’s term “cosmic midf**ker” because the birding was pretty hard work, despite the remote rural setting and the abundance of broadleaved and conifer woodland.

The commonest birds were Large-billed Crows, Tree Sparrows, Black Kites, and philippensis Blue Rock Thrushes with a smattering of Great Cormorants and the odd Grey Heron along the rivers. My one session of dedicated birding on 9th July was a walk from Hongu to Yunomine Onsen (a World Heritage-ranked hot spring) started with a mixed flock of Varied and Long-tailed Tits and the occasional high-pitched shrieking of a Brown–eared Bulbul. Other bits and pieces included a couple of Meadow Buntings and a few Oriental Greenfinches, plus several singing Japanese Bush Warblers, one of which eventually succumbed to its curiosity and shinned up a hemlock stem to check me out. I also heard Asian Lesser Cuckoo singing across the valley and found a pair of Asian House Martins on the river between the onsens as we arrived on the first day. Given the well-forested hills and the abundance (if not diversity) of passerines I was surprised to see not a single accipiter in the three days we were here

A move to Kushimoto – the southernmost tip of Honshu island – added a few more birds, the most spectacular of which were parties of Pacific Swifts around the lighthouse at the tip itself and at the iconic rock formations on the easternmost end of the beach. As the day drew to a close a party of 18 Black-tailed Gulls, two of which were soot-brown juveniles, and a Grey Heron drifted west along the harbourfront. At the hotel a couple of Blue Rock Thrushes were practicing being gargoyles on the rooftop, and a Japanese Bush Warbler sang in the scrub below the swimming pool. The next morning the only bird of note was an Osprey seen from the train on the way back to Kansai Airport.

Cheers
Mike

Hi Mike:

Really looking forward to more of this report; I've long wanted to go to Japan. (Although not, I confess, for the Unagi ice cream).

However, impertinent question if I may - do you already speak some Japanese? Fluent Japanese?

Thanks Peter

I speak no Japanese at all, but my wife lived there for a year and that makes life easier.

However a few years ago I did travel from Tokyo up to eastern Hokkaido on my own without difficulty (but a lot of kindness from people along the way).

Cheers
Mike

Okinawa
Birdwise, Okinawa started slowly. The combination of a lurking major typhoon and a long holiday weekend meant we had to spend a whole day in the hotel trying to find a hotel for Saturday and Sunday night, rather than heading north to the endemic-rich forests of Yanbaru. The only birding I managed was a trip to the Shiro-Jo castle, where the local oorti race of Chinese Bulbul, a Bright-capped Cisticola, the darker stimpsoni race of Oriental Turtle Dove and a host of Blue Rock Thrushes, including a singing male, added to the splendour of the castle.

The net result of the search was a night in a painfully pricey hotel in the northern suburbs of Naha just south of the conference centre. According to the websites it was the very last available room in Naha apart from single sex dormitories. On the upside it provided fine views of an ocean dotted with a flock of 40-odd Roseate Terns, which I scoped perched on two green offshore buoys the next morning. A pair of Pacific Swallows, several Brown-eared Bulbuls and more Blue Rock Thrushes added a bit of interest, but it was basically frustrating to be stuck in the city for another day.

Constrained to stay in Naha by the lack of accommodation for another night, we did get out of town on Sunday afternoon, heading down to the peace park on the southernmost point of Naha island. There were three or four Pacific Reef Egrets on the wave-cut platform below the cliffs, Japanese Tit, Brown-eared Bulbuls, and yet more Blue Rock Thrushes among the monuments, plus Oriental Turtle Doves and Pacific Swallows. A flyover pigeon looked to be green with streaked undertail coverts, but I never got a good enough view to confirm it as a possible Ryukyu Green Pigeon.

We finally headed north on the Monday, when an uneventful drive up to Cape Hedo was rewarded with four sea turtle sp. hanging about just a few metres offshore and diving into the gullies between the submerged rocks to feed. My best guess is that they were Loggerheads, but would welcome any better-informed opinions as to which species are likely.

The day got really interesting after we realized we’d cocked up our minshuku (guest house) booking and had to drive down to the costlier Ada Garden Hotel. A few minutes after leaving Oku I caught a brief view of a medium-sized bird with dark brown wings zipping across the road. Walking back to look for it I was delighted to great wonderful close views of a female Pryer’s Woodpecker – an Okinawan endemic – and the one I thought would be most difficult to get! The bird was predominantly a deep maroon, but with a paler face, reddish belly and a few white spots on the rectrices, and a brown cap, rather than the red cap that is characteristic of so many male woodpeckers. Even better, while I was checking it out a rustling in the bushes turned out to be another endemic – Ryukyu Flying Fox – a large frugivorous bat, and a fine extra bonus.

Adding to these we found no less than seven Okinawa Rails poking about on the roadside in the low evening light. Large, awkward and somewhat gawky with their big red feet, stocky upright bodies and the merest stub of a tail, they looked every inch the vulnerable island endemic, even with the handsome red bill extended white eyestripe, and fine white bars across their predominantly black underparts. Having found three birds in a small lay-by we pulled over and watched delighted as they picked among the roadside vegetation and waddled across the road, apparently indifferent to the presence of the car.

Tuesday 16th July
. . . started excellently with another Pryer’s Woodpecker showing well on a dead snag just across the road from the carpark before I headed up into the forest shortly after dawn. I was surprised not to come across any more Okinawa Rails, but I did hear the distinctive descending trill of a Ruddy Kingfisher calling a couple of times in places I couldn’t stop, and had two or three more of the woodpeckers close to the road.

Having forgotten my map I overshot the road for Benoki Dam and continued downhill until I realized I’d gone too far. Just as I was looking to turn round I drove under a Ryukyu Green Pigeon perched on an overhead wire! Turning the car, I was able to stop for a few seconds and greedily absorbed all the salient features of yet another Ryukyu endemic.

A turn-off to the right then gave me my first Ryukyu Robin – a female bird that popped up from the edge of the road and then sat helpfully still once I got onto it – fantastic stuff! In the branches above it three or four Varied Tits (presumably of the Ryukyu endemic race amamii) responded nicely to my pishing, before getting bored and pushing off. Driving a bit further in I found a side-trail to explore in the hope of getting views of a couple of calling pigeons that Xeno-canto suggested were Japanese Wood Pigeon – another huge target for me. I got nowhere with that and, other than the rotund backside of an Okinawa Rail disappearing into the undergrowth, had no more birds. The only interest came from a number of pipe traps which I believe have been laid to catch the foolishly introduced mongoose (I saw several vans from the Yanburu Mongoose Busters team over the time we were here).

Since the pigeons were still calling I decided to attempt the “scope ’em from afar” approach as trying to get closer was getting me nowhere. Heading round the corner to find a viewpoint I poked a look into a wooded watercourse and was rather taken aback to find a rufous-coloured scops owl with tall thin ear tufts and an orange hint to its large round eyes staring back at me – a recently split Japanese Scops Owl of the Ryukyu race pryeri. After a few seconds, as my thoughts went to my scope in the car in the hopes of digiscoping it, reading my mind it turned and dropped back a little deeper into cover and out of sight. A great bonus bird! Further distraction emerged in the form of a Ruddy Kingfisher (another Ryukyu endemic subspecies – bangsi – which unlike the birds elsewhere in Japan, China India etc are resident) calling from cover just above the road. I tried a few angles as it was pretty close, but before I struck lucky it lost patience and took off directly over my head, showing no more than a pale throat patch on otherwise buffy-looking underparts, and shrieking its disdain at my ineptitude. As a long, long sought-after bird this was a desperately tantalizing view that barely registers as a lifer. BVD.

Finally getting back to the job in hand, the pigeons were still calling and the day got even better when I got onto a big dark pigeon perched in some bare branches. It was a fair way away, but with the scope on it I was able to confirm all the features to add Japanese Wood Pigeon as the second excellent pigeon tick in just over an hour! Just as I turned away to grab the camera it disappeared. As I headed back to the car the pigeon started calling very close-by and gave me a fine opportunity to enjoy the extraordinary call, which starts with a low rippling coo-ing (like a pigeon trying to copy a woodpecker’s drumming), followed by a pause and a deeper, more sonorous wooooooo, and after a second pause a sound that I can best equate to the sound of a sander machine just starting to rev up. It’s good that it was quiet and the bird was close as I would never have believed that all three noises could possibly emanate from the same species, let alone a single individual. There’s a recording by Des Allen on Xeno-canto here. This bird did allow some pix, as it sat in the top of a pine tree.

Rather stunned at the quality of my morning – with five terrific lifers under the belt – I began heading back to the hotel, pausing only long enough to enjoy an Okinawa Rail foraging close-by on a roadside slope, and to confirm that the suspected turning for Benoki Dam did indeed head in that direction.

The afternoon was spent driving down to the wonderful Okinawa aquarium. The highlights were a giant tank containing three Whale Sharks, Manta and Eagle rays, several sharks, and a pair of American Manatees. You can see some video here, but the bottom line is, if you haven’t seen courting manatees then you really haven’t lived!

On the journey there I persuaded Carrie to take a back-road through the forest and was rewarded with a a good view of a male Ryukyu Robin, which flipped up from the road flashing its rufous wings, and then perched well to check us out – very nice! A little further on we braked hard to avoid a Ryukyu Fire-bellied Newt - another endemic - plodding determinedly across the road. On the way back we heard at least seven Ryukyu Scops Owlson the drive through the forest, none of which we saw (so sadly no tick), plus two different Ryukyu Odd-toothed Snakes – a non-venomous species that apparently eats the venomous ones.

Cheers
Mike

Sounds like you had a very fruitful trip Mike !

The rash of red ink tells the story Kevin - just about every bird - and beast - was an endemic.

Wednesday 17th July
More exploration of the Yanbaru forest trails started slowly except for the usual small groups of the smallest Large-billed Crows I’ve seen (race connectens). They seem to love the roadsides and must make a very good living out of roadkill to be so common here. As I headed south along a side road signposted for some sort of nature centre a male Ryukyu Robin flew up from the road but it was otherwise fairly quiet until I came to a clearing where an Pryer’s Woodpecker teased mercilessly without allowing me to come away with anything more than a couple of distant and blurry photos.

A takking in the undergrowth caught my attention as Brazil notes that there is a resident race of Japanese Bush Warbler, restricta (curiously down as restrictus in the IOC 3.4 checklist), that may even be a good species. It finally showed after fifteen minutes of cat- and-mouse, in which time it also sang – a bit flatter in tone and a bit less explosive than the birds I’d heard at Hongu a few days earlier. It turned out to be the first of three seen during the day.

From here I headed back towards Benoki Dam and just a short way of the main road I have five Okinawa Rails at the roadside. Just past the four-way junction a stop to search for another Ruddy Kingfisher again had me going nuts as it sang out of view but very close. As this one took off across the valley towards its mate I had brief but clear views of that shocking red bill, rufous upperparts and a small light blue rump patch. Better, but still not as good as I was hoping for. I also found my second Ryukyu Green Pigeon perched unobtrusively in a tree in the same area.

A few hunded metres further another Ryukyu Robin came up off the road in a well-shaded dell. This area held three different robins, including a scraggly-looking male that had obviously just finished bathing in the roadside stream. The other good bird here was a young, and still streaky Ryukyu Flycatcher (the race owstoni is still, at least for the time-being, lumped with Narcissus Flycatcher) that came right in to my pishing, but failed to bring a parent with it. This was a disappointment as I would very much have liked to look at some females to help me better understand some of the birds I’d seen in Hong Kong earlier in the year. Nonetheless it showed a robust bill, a clear eyering and a couple of rather large buffy wingbars.

A road that followed the southern edge of the reservoir at long last delivered my first accipiter of the trip. Having been surprised by their absence in Hongu it now appears that I should be surprised by the presence of any accipiters at all in midsummer on Okinawa. This was a nicely compact and square-tailed female Japanese Sparrowhawk, being harassed by a Large-billed Crow. They apparently breed on Iriomote at the western end of the Ryukyus, but have not been recorded doing so on Okinawa, while Besra gets nowhere near and Chinese Goshawk is a passage migrant only.

There were again more Ruddy Kingfishers calling down here, and again frustrating me by not showing from two different bridges. Finally I heard one calling in flight and was thrilled to watch it come over the canopy and land in a tree some 50 metres away, close to another calling bird. It was initially obscured by a thicket of leaves, but by shifting my position I was finally able to get perched views of this fantastic kingfisher, a vibrant, almost shockingly orange-red bird glowing against the more muted shades of the forest. Despite the very tough competition, headed rather unexpectedly by the wood pigeon, this ranked as my bird of the trip.

With time running out before I needed to head back and pack up I negotiated a steeper road with lots of fallen vegetation, but added just one more Ryukyu Robin and a Brown-eared Bulbul I very much hoped would be the Okinawan race pryeri. But when I finally tracked it down it disappointingly showed no sign of an extensive dark chestnut belly and appeared simply to be the usual race - amaurotis - that is common throughout Japan. That was pretty much it for Okinawa. We caught the Peach flight back to Kansai and spent the rest of the day traveling up to Nara for the final few days of our trip.

Cheers
Mike

18th – 20th July: Nara and Hikone Castle
The main attraction of Nara was the several hundred-strong herd of Sika Deer in the very pleasant city park. These shared their park with a few dozen White-cheeked Starlings, some splendid lugens White Wagtails and the usual array of Brown-eared Bulbul, Japanese and Varied Tits, and Oriental Turtle Doves. One of the ponds held a couple of Grey Herons and a Great Egret, plus my first Little Grebes of the trip.

The next morning I got up early to explore the “primeval forest” on the hills to the east of Nara. My big success here was finally getting views of Japanese Green Woodpecker – a bird I’d only previously seen in the briefest of fly-by views several years earlier. It showed especially well on my second visit, when I watched a male – its red cap reduced to a narrow mohican stripe - hunting up a fungus-covered tree trunk no more than 25 metres away, showing its rather washed-out upperparts and diagnostic black spots on the flanks and lower belly. A walk up and over the hill and through a pleasant meadow also produced two Japanese Skylarks, a couple of singing Japanese Bush Warblers, a Meadow Bunting, and an unexpected Red-rumped Swallow. An enjoyable visit to Hikone castle was notable mostly for the two Japanese Wagtails in the gardens around the keep and a fine vibrant egretry, which held thirty or more pairs of Great Egrets and Grey Herons.

Overall this was an interesting trip. While the two mornings in northern Okinawa were the obvious highlight, other issues that emerged included the surprising absence of accipiters from seemingly very good habitat, as there are well-forested hills everywhere. I did not expect the lower diversity of birds around Hongu, where there didn’t seem to be more than one representative of each genus: one bunting, one finch, one thrush, one warbler, one cuckoo, one bulbul, one woodpecker, one raptor, one dove, etc . This did however allow for a better appreciation of the diversity of truly tropical birding in Hong Kong, where the variety of common species is considerably higher – even in the depths of summer when there are no migrants about.

Cheers
Mike

Sounds like a lovely trip Mike. The orange belly is definitely an eye-catcher. Just happened to check the images of the Green Woodpecker, a lovely bird.

I just did a short Okinawa trip, following discussion with Mike. The birdy area was definitely the Benoki Dam where I saw all available endemics in two days in late September. Missed only the Amami Woodcock and Ruddy Kingfisher which were not in season (first is wintering in Okinawa, second is extremely rare outside spring and summer time).
I did also a night tour with Mr Kimio Kanda, a local guide, which yielded night views of the Rail and the three endemic owls of the area (Ryukyu Scops Owl, Japanese Scops var. pryeri, Ryukyu Hawk Owl). If you are interested in the night safari or stressed of not getting the endemics (which are all "relatively easy"), you can contact him: [email protected] (cell phone: +81-90-6773-4001).
I stayed at Miyagi Minshuku for three nights, a friendly and relatively inexpensive minshuku and great if you want to share experience (and local liquors) with locals. The Oku valley nnearby holds some rails, owls, plenty of robins and I saw a pair of Okinawa Woodpeckers as well. However, it is relatively far from the dam area. The lady speaks a bit of English, but better if you have a Japanese friend to help you with the booking (phone: 0980-41-8383).

Abdel has posted great pix of most of the endemics on the HKBWS website.

Cheers
Mike

Abdel has posted great pix of most of the endemics on the HKBWS website.

Cheers
Mike