Our earliest rise yet and we headed out in the dark at 0530
in a very still -8c. The temperature
quickly fell away as we headed towards the famous Otowa Bridge and by the time
we arrived it was -18c and the most perfect morning imaginable for visiting
this iconic spot to watch the Red-crowned Cranes wake from their roost in the steaming
waters of the River Setsuri.
I had warned the crew about it being a bit of a bun fight on the bridge itself but some of us had a height advantage over the majority of the Chinese photographers and managed to make room in front for those amongst us of a shorter stature.
Several Cranes were quite close and paddled in the shallows
with Goosanders and Little Grebes for company and bugling could be heard from
the larger party further back in the rising vapours. The numbingly cold temperature was causing
icicles to form in my beard and on my eyelashes but it was such a magical
morning with the sun starting to peek through and causing the ice crystal
encrusted trees to quite literally twinkle.
Another party of Cranes were already out in the adjacent fields but some
of them had gone back to sleep.
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| The sun had not yet reached the trees or the Cranes |
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| And then the sparkle began... |
Red-crowned Cranes - Elaine Chuang
Red-crowned Cranes - Elaine Chuang
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| Red-crowned Cranes - Chris Darby |
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| Red-crowned Cranes - Jim Willett |
I walked back off the bridge and picked up a bird in a
distant tree. I did not tell them what I
had found but slowly rounded them all up for a look and one by one I watched
their faces as their realised that they were watching their first Steller’s Sea
Eagle. I reckon it was over a mile away
but they still marvelled at the size of that bill.
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| Red-crowned Cranes and that first Steller’s Sea Eagle top right |
With faces and fingers numb but hearts warm we started to
make our way back for breakfast.
Normally we would go to see the Ural Owls but their tree had blown down
since last year so we opted to drive the snowy lanes looking for Rosy
Finches. We had no joy but did find a
big flock of Tree Sparrows around a farm yard and another Steller’s Sea Eagle
sat in a snowfield with a backdrop of puffing volcanos.
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| Steller’s Sea Eagle - Chris Darby |
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| Steller’s Sea Eagle |
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| Steller’s Sea Eagle |
The plan was to get in to the hotel and have a quick breakfast
before checking out and heading north but as usual I was last in with Chris and
heard some Northern Long-tailed Tits around the car park. They suddenly appeared just in front so I ran
to the front door and sent a message to our WhatsApp group to down tools and
get back outside! Last year we only saw them briefly at Otowa and nowhere else
so I was keen to make sure everyone got to see them. Shima-enaga are culturally iconic up
here on Hokkaido in particular and these little snowballs bounced around the
shrubbery for all to enjoy. After a short
while they moved back to the trees where Marsh Tits, Treecreeper and ice cold ‘Clara’
Nuthatches were seen before we had to return to more mundane things like eating.
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| Northern Long-tailed Tit - Shima-enaga - Chris Darby |
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| Northern Long-tailed Tit - Chris Darby |
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| Northern Long-tailed Tit - Chris Darby |
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| Eurasian Treecreeper - Certhia flamiliaris daurica - Chris Darby |
We were soon packed up and on the road towards Tisuri for
our close up encounters with the Red-crowned Cranes. It was once again a very special experience
and I counted 96 birds on their snowy field and we spent an hour watching them
feed and dance and preen and pose. Sudden
explosions of sound reverberated as a pair or two would go into full bugle mode,
standing so tall and straight with white wings arched and coal black tertials
all puffed up. It was so cold that you
could see their breath drifting away between each trumpeting call.
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| Red-crowned Cranes - simply magnificent. |
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| Red-crowned Cranes - Chris Darby |
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| Red-crowned Crane - Chris Darby |
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| Red-crowned Cranes - Chris Darby |
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| Red-crowned Cranes - Chris Darby |
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| Red-crowned Cranes - Chris Darby |
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| Red-crowned Cranes - Chris Darby |
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| Red-crowned Cranes heading up to the take off strip - Jim Willett |
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| Red-crowned Cranes - Jim Willett |
The light was quite tricky so I resisted taking a zillion
pictures this time and walked back up towards the vans where Shima-enaga
bounced around the pines with Marsh and Coal Tits.
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| Shima-enaga |
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| Shima-enaga |
From here we travelled north to Shibetsu on the coast with a
couple of roadside stops failing to give us Ural Owl but resulting in superb
low level views of White-backed, Great Spotted and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker
along with various Tits, Nuthatches and two cold grey Common Redpolls.
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| White-backed Woodpecker - Dendrocopos leucotos subcirris |
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| White-backed Woodpecker - Chris Darby |
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| Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker - Jim Willett |
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| Common Redpoll - Jim Willett |
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Common Redpoll
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The road from here gave us both White-tailed and Steller’s
Sea Eagles, more Red-crowned Cranes around farmyards, several Eastern Buzzards
and an ice hole in a lake that had Wigeon and Falcated Ducks.
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| White-tailed and Steller’s Sea Eagles |
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| Steller’s Sea Eagles |
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| Steller’s Sea Eagle |
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| Steller’s Sea Eagles |
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| Steller’s Sea Eagle |
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| White-tailed Eagle |
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| Red-naped Crane |
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| Red-naped Crane |
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| Red-naped Cranes - Chris Darby |
The sea suddenly appeared in front of us and we pulled up on
the Shibetsu front and spent a good hour checking the bay and inner harbours. There were plenty of duck with gleaming
Harlequins, orange egg billed Black Scoters, Red-breasted Mergansers and Goosanders,
Goldeneye, Tufted Ducks and Greater Scaup.
Another drake Falcated Duck was found and a single Red-throated Diver
shone white off shore.
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| Shibetsu - Jim Willett |
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| Harlequins - Jim Willett |
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| Harlequin - 1w drake |
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| Harlequins |
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| Harlequins - Chris Darby |
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| Black Scoters |
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| Falcated Duck and Wigeon |
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| Greater Scaup and a Tufted Duck |
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| Greater Scaup |
Pelagic Cormorants showed their true colours once out on the
harbour walls and I do not remember such vibrant greens and purples last time.
There were Gulls too but most were Slaty-backed with just six Glaucous and a
single adult Glaucous-winged Gull while a flock of 27 Kamchatka Gulls flew
north up the coast. Both Eagles circled
and one adult White-tailed was sat on a harbour light on the quay…
Pelagic Cormorants - Elaine Chuang
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| Pelagic Cormorants - Jim Willett |
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| Pelagic Cormorant - Jim Willett |
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Pelagic Cormorants
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Pelagic Cormorants
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White-tailed Eagle
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| Slaty-backed Gull - a bit of a brute this one |
It was still over an hour’s drive to Rausu and our hotel and
I saw two Brown Dippers from the bus as we headed up the valley in the first of
the evening’s snowflakes.
An early dinner was booked and at 6pm we headed back out for
the short drive into town to the river where we hoped that the Blakiston’s Fish
Owl would not keep us waiting too long in our freezing open fronted container
hide.
We soon settled in and kept everything crossed but the previous evening the male had dropped in at 1.45 in the morning just after most photographers left. I sincerely hoped that we would not have to wait that long. There was a Spanish group present too but they left at about 8pm and as I watched the reach their cars along side the river I happened to see the Owl glide effortlessly across the valley! No one else had seen it!
Thankfully it had gone behind the hides and Dave poked his
head out the back door with his thermal and could see him glowing away. We were now confident that he would come in
and ten minutes later he swooped into the illuminated area out front. The relief!
Cameras rolled and you could here murmurings of awe. He hopped up to the poo land leapt in; had a
flap and came out with a couple of live fish.
He swallowed one and took off with the other back over the hide.
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| Blakiston’s Fish Owl - Jim Willett |
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| Blakiston’s Fish Owl |
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| Blakiston’s Fish Owl - Chris Darby |
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| Blakiston’s Fish Owl - Chris Darby |
Dave looked again and you could see him feed the fish to the
female who was now sat up in the tree. A
few minutes later he came down one again and this time caught two more fish but
he soon took off as a fluffy Red Fox lolloped into to steal his dropped
dinner. The Owl did not go far and sat
up on the telephone wires waiting for the all clear. It watched the Fox walk below it and the
mammal looked tiny in comparison to the world’s biggest owl.
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| Blakiston’s Fish Owl - Chris Darby |
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| Blakiston’s Fish Owl - the leap |
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| Red Fox - same scale as the previous pic - Jim Willett |
He soon came back down and perched up in the shade just beyond
the campervan which must have been frustrating for those inside it as it was
very close but not illuminated. It still
looked fabulous in our bins though and Chris got an amazing shot on a two
second exposure where you could see the snow building up on the top of his
head.
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| Blakiston’s Fish Owl - Chris Darby |
In the meantime the female had come down on the island
further along and caught herself a large Vole before flying up onto the next
pole down. Simply unbelievable. We sat
and waited for either to come back down but both seemed content with their
chosen spots and after 90 minutes of continuous Owl time we decided to leave
and even when we got back to the buses you could still see both birds
comfortably sat out of the limelight.
There was one more treat once back at the hotel and I
gathered everyone together for Jenny to tell her family story:
‘Approximately three years ago a friend sent me a copy of a
book he had found at his mother’s house, which he thought I would enjoy knowing
I am a bird person! The book was "Owls of the Eastern Ice" by
Jonathan C Slaght.
The first page started with the words "I saw my first
Blakiston's Fish Owl ...". I read this and a light bulb lit in my brain
with the memory of my father talking about a relative having an owl named after
him. His name was Thomas Wright Blakiston and he was my Great Grandfather's
older brother.
The next catalyst was that I passed a Japanese stall at Bird
Fair in the summer of 2024 and saw a T-shirt with "Save Blakiston's
Owl" on the front which of course I bought! An accompanying leaflet
showed that the fish owl could be found in Japan as well as Jonathan's
Slaght's Russia. An idea began to form! When I found that Bird's
Wildlife & Nature Tours did a winter tour to Japan which included the
possibility of seeing Blakiston's Fish Owl I mentioned it to Alison and
the rest as they say is history!’
Tony stayed on in Hokkaido after we left to visit family in Hakodate
where there is a monument to the great man and it was only fitting that Tony
should visit it in our absence.
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| Thomas Wright Blakiston - 1832- 1891 |
There was a spontaneous round of applause and it was really
was the perfect end to a remarkable day.
Quite wisely no mention had been made of this prior to the evening on
the chance that we may not be lucky but as it was we had had an extraordinary encounter
with a pair of Blakiston’s Fish Owls.
Two minutes would have been fabulous but 90 minutes was unheard of. Walk away views.
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However, as Smashie and Nicely were wont to say back in the day...
'You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet' |
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