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"It was like any other of the 6 trips that went before it. A
small gathering of birders, a monthly outing...and good birds. These trips have
formed the backbone of my birding stay in Japan. With the exception of
specialist trips - two school-holiday sojourns to eastern Hokkaido - my birding
in and around Tokyo (and by extension, Japan) has been very limited. Limited to
easily accessible places. Limited to well-known places. Limited to places where
people are few.
So, then, it was a stroke of good luck that brought me into
contact with Kaz, the leader of these monthly outings. And in many ways Kaz is
perfectly placed to guide not only local birders, but also foreign birders like
myself. For starters, he is an English teacher, so there are no language barriers
at all. And he is a respected Japanese birder, so he has many local birding
contacts from which he can obtain information in the way that foreigners
cannot.
In Japan, there is no reporting system for rare birds in the
way that England has a super-efficient pager system or even in the way that
Australia has 'Birding-aus.' And yet when, on one of the monthly trips with
Kaz, we dropped by a small beach to twitch Japan's first Yellow-rumped Warbler
and were greeted by 150 birders brandishing tens of thousands of dollars of
camera gear, it was clear that there was no problems with getting the
information around. Apparently it is all done by word of mouth which, for a
country as technologically advanced and efficient as Japan, may seem
paradoxical but that is one of many things that I have learnt about Japan.
Maybe it comes with an age-old culture accelerated through rapid globalisation
and Westernisation.
This particular outing lived and breathed waders. The waders
that have only recently re-arrived back here and will soon arrive back over in
Australia as well. We met-up at Yatsu-higata, the rectangular patch of tidal
mudflat surrounded by busy traffic and
residential buildings with a rather industrial feel. There it was business as
usual: Common Greenshank, Red-necked Stint, Lesser Sand Plover, Ruddy
Turnstone, Bar-tailed Godwit, Grey Plover, Great Knot, Grey-tailed Tattler, Common
Sandpiper, Terek Sandpiper and Little Ringed Plover. The last were,
embarrassingly, new birds for me and the LRP in particular was very abundant
throughout the rest of the day. A slightly unusual egret had Kaz thinking of
the rare Chinese Egret but after much debate it still proved controversial. I,
for one, could not detect any difference in jizz from the nearby Little Egrets,
so I left it at that.
That was only the warm-up though. The day's specialty was
freshwater waders. Now, I can hear you thinking that freshwater waders may not
necessarily be more special than their saline relatives, but when I tell you
that this was the first time I would have the opportunity to pick up some of
the freshwater waders here, you might understand why I was particularly keen
about this part of the trip. And in Japan, the difference between what is a
freshwater wader and what is a saltwater wader is much more distinct than in
Australia. For instance, in Australia Black-tailed Godwits are found mostly
around coasts in saline or semi-saline habitats. And yet in Japan, presumably
the same birds are nearly always found in freshwater habitats, such as rice
paddies. And before you point out that rice paddies are a great habitat source
that are much more common in Japan, I might add that Bar-tailed Godwits are
very common on mudflats in Japan.
As it turns out, we did not see a Black-tailed Godwit that
day. But that was about all we did not see. The first stop was to three
rectangular side-by-side water-filled paddies somewhere in Ibaragi-ken. And
before the car even stopped and we got out, I could tell it was a cracking
spot. Just in this little spot we added Ruff (uncommon), Marsh Sandpiper
(uncommon), Wood Sandpiper, Grey-headed Lapwing (rare in eastern Japan),
Oriental Pratincole (uncommon), Pacific Golden Plover and Greater Painted Snipe
(uncommon) to the list.
Moving on, the second place was not to be outdone. 2
water-filled paddies and a third one slightly removed produced Long-toed Stint
(uncommon), Sharp-tailed Sandpiper (uncommon in autumn), Cattle Egrets and even
an adult Temminck's Stint (again uncommon). Temminck's Stints are not birds we
get in Australia but take a quick look in any field guide and you will notice
that they are distinctive because they are so nondescript. In reality in the
field, they stand out quite readily given a decent view, but this one was an
absolute bugger to get on to moving slowly through the abundant vegetation in
the rapidly failing twilight. And right at the end, a nice healthy discussion
over dinner about the ID of 3 snipe seen in the last paddy. General consensus
was Swinhoe's Snipe (uncommon), but as they say with snipe, if you don't have
them in the hand...
And in that manner, one day turns into one of the best days
of birdwatching this year. I got something like 15 new birds for the country
which, considering I had around 210 before setting out, was, for this country's
standards, quite a good effort I thought. It wasn't the amazing rarity of the
species that blew me away, but rather the amount of good, solid birds that we
saw. Birds like these are always good to get. They are a notch removed from the
common birds, but not rare so that you never see them. They are birds that
bring satisfaction in a way that the excitement of rarities does not. They are,
if you like, the bread and butter of birding. And of course, if they are all
new, it does add to it somewhat..."
I must thank one member of the chatline who, it seems, had
been paying some sort of attention to my (recently lack of) postings from this
overcrowded country. I know I have been too lazy and somewhat uninspired to
write a regular account for the past three months or so. During that time, I
went to Hokkaido, went on one twitch and spent the rest of the time in the air-conditioned
room, using entirely too much of the computer. And if anyone, for any reason,
does want an account of the Hokkaido trip, or anything else I might have been
doing during the last 3 months, do not hesitate to ask.
So I will leave this account with a photo of a bird that brings both
excitement and awe. A rare freak of nature, the Arctic Tern. Excitement because
it is a rarity here, much like in Australia. And awe because what on earth could
possess such a small, dainty bird to traverse the globe, back and forth to the
tune of 70,000km each year?
Tobias Hayashi
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