Brass Monkeys and Dipping like a dipper

Ok..this is a post concerning my trip yesterday so it's going to be mainly about bird stuff but there will be a bit of other stuff also. Sure, you may aswell read on seeing as you logged in here anyway!!

A frightfully cold early morning alarm call got me out of bed and straight into the hot shower yesterday morning. Man, it was cold. Left the gaff at 5am and met up with Neil in Kyoto at 6.45am, along with a visiting German postdoc named Rod who was in Kyoto/Tokyo for a couple of weeks before heading back to Paris. Once we met up, it was off to Lake Biwa (Biwa-ko) to twitch Stellar's Sea Eagle! I was excited at the prospect of seeing, for me, one of the world's most amazing birds.



Let me just tell you first that Biwa-ko is Japan's largest lake, 50 km long and maybe 20 or more km in width. Sometimes I thought we were looking out at the sea because you can't see the other shore at most points on the route!! We got to one of the nature centres on the western side, the place where the Eagle was last seen...or so we thought. The surrounding moutains were snow-covered and my gonadage had shrunk to shriveled conkers, it was so cold. So much so that, without a pair gloves between us, my hands just wouldn't stop shaking and so most, if not all my photos were just hilariously terrible!! Hence, there are few of them. Anyway, I digress, like I always do. We birded the area and couldn't see the eagle. However, there were incredible numbers of ducks and Black Kites, with fly-by Hawfinch, Dusky Thrush and Japanese Wagtail. We went into the centre at 9am, the time which it opened and the kind gentleman there told us it was scared off by jet-skiers (BASTARDS!!!) during the week and was on the other side of the lake. Disaster. So, back into the car for the "30 minutes drive". 90 minutes later (!) after driving around to the eastern shore, traversing the windy mountainous road with snow on the verges, we arrived at the centre. With bated breath we legged it in, paying the 200yen cover charge, and being the only gaijins there it was obvious we were here to see Mr. Stellar's eagle. Oh it had been there that morning, coming down to feed on the duck, scaring everything in the process, and departing again for the hills to have breakfast. Alas, it was not seen since and during the 4 hours we stayed there, it never did reappear...we were gutted.



However, all was not lost. One of the young Japanese birders picked up a White-tailed Sea Eagle!! A lifer for me and a stunning bird. Majestic in it's size and an awesome sight. Although it wasn't a Stellar's, it constituted my first ever eagle speices and I was blown away. Fantastic, I was made up. We then heard that there had been a Whiskered tern about 30km down the road which was a Japanese tick for Neil and a SAUNDER'S gull!! My god, my heart nearly exploded. One of the world's rarest gulls, globally threatened and a stunning gull too at that. We pegged it back to the car (much to Rod's disappointment) and headed south. We picked up the immature Spoonbill on the way, a rare bird in Japan and a tick for Neil, Russet Sparrow, Baikal and Falcated Teal. An incredible 16 species of duck on the day, including american wigeon, smew, goldeneye and goosander.

Meanwhile, back on the ranch, we got to the destination and quickly saw the tern fly over the car...panic. We couldn't relocate it so I suggested we go down by the river, have a look at the immature Hooded Crane that was there and wait for the tern to complete it's route and it would be back again in no time. Sure enough, bouncing along, here came the tern, flying past the crane...very surreal. The photos of this guy were hilarous, I was so cold at this stage that I could hardly depress the shutter button!! Madness.



However, despite our best efforts, the gull was nowhere to be seen. The area was just to vast to cover and light was fading fast. Our last bird of the day, and a surprise at that, a male American wigeon swimming close to shore but I was too frozen too take the camera out of my bag.

A grand total of 60 species is an excellent day tally in Japan, the most I've seen so far and we missed some common passerines too. A fabulous day, I'm a bit tired writing this so excuse me if I haven't portrayed it the way I should. I will not aplogise to those birder-bashing heathens out there for writing this...you know who you are! It could be worse, I could be writing about flower arranging classes...now that would not be exciting (apologies to all those flower arrangers out there who read this).

I got home at 8pm, shattered, cold, hungry but elated at the day's sightings or not-sightings. The amazing thing about birding in this country is that one never knows what will turn up...it makes the birding exciting. For me, that's what counts.



Highlights: Eurasian Spoonbill*, Bean Goose (c120)*, Bewick's Swan (100+)*, Baikal Teal (5), FALCATED TEAL, American Wigeon (1)*, Goldeneye*, Smew*, Goosander*, Osprey, WHITE-TAILED SEA EAGLE, Black Kite, Eurasian Sparrow Hawk, Northern Goshawk (2-3), Common Buzzard, E Marsh Harrier, Kestrel, Hooded Crane, Vega Gull, Whiskered Tern*, RUSSET SPARROW, Black-faced Bunting

ps: I've just finished reading "From Oslo to Iraq and the Road Map" by Edward W. Said. It's a must read for those who have sympathies with the Palestinians...it opened my already-opened eyes even more