Billions of spiders... !

I was up on the Japan Sea with my wife for a couple of nights; an eating trip to Tottori city in the main. But I got up one pre-dawn morning to check the fields inland of the coast near Shinjiko.


Freshly fallen snow had been covering the backroads through the mountains on our overnight drive up, my first snow of what has been an exceptionally mild late autumn and early winter. Steep and twisting backroads at night; what was I thinking, of course it would pick then to snow! But milder conditions had returned the morning I spent birding, a hail shower aside there was intermittent light rain and enough of the sun to paint vivid and regular rainbows. An unseasonable small tortoiseshell flitting around riverside berry bushes, presumably looking for non-existant flowers, was a further contradiction to that cautious drive up two nights ago.


Unexpected as the butterfly may have been the biggest surprise was spiders, billions of spiders. I didn't notice them at first, not for a long while in fact, but the tips of emergent vegetation and old stubble alike were festooned with threads. I wasn't parked long before my windscreen was covered with threads and arriving spiders were busy constructing webs on any angle they could find.


So no pictures of the spiders but as any birds feeding over a huge area of fields were draped with fine threads this is all by way to explain their appearance.



Rooks were very common, there were a couple of flocks of over a hundred birds and smaller groups here and there. These flocks were quite mobile but the upside of that was finding any Daurian Jackdaws became far easier than when birds might have been hidden behind field borders. In the end I only found a single Jackdaw and I don't for a moment think I missed any.


Rooks and spider silk...

Daurian Jackdaw...

These Northern Lapwings about a kilometre away didn't fare any better, and notice the streaming spider threads from the stubble...

Eight species of birds of prey weren't getting covered with spider silk. Hen Harrier was the best for me as it's a species I don't often see around Kyoto nowadays but the best photo op came in the form of this approachable Merlin sitting on the wires.

Mie - April 8

It's still too early for the best of the wader passage in the region but birds should be coming through. I drove across on Tuesday night dreaming of Nordmann's Greenshank and Eurasian Dotterel, two birds I'd really love to see in Japan. Dream on.

High tide was early so at dawn, if the little light filtering through the streaming rain could be called dawn, I began to drive slowly round the endless fields. Things actually started very well. The rain eased a bit and revealed a bedraggled Merlin in one of the first fields I edged by. I suppose there wouldn't be much prey activity in the conditions so sitting waiting for the promised better weather on the way was the best option. Weather promised by the forecasters isn't always forthcoming but maybe the Merlin had a better understanding of things and, dare I say it, for once the forecasters got it right.

A week ago I watched a pair of Merlins displaying high over a huge area of fields here, even executing a food pass way out over the bay. What a difference decent weather makes.  

Not much further I found a goose in the fields. A few Brents turn up on the flats each winter but I've never seen any grey geese in this area, I've never seen them anywhere on the Pacific side of the region. The nearest wintering grey geese are Taiga (Middendorff's) Bean at the north end of Lake Biwa but they left weeks ago, at least I didn't see any there March 9 or at Katano Kamo-ike in Kanazawa the previous day. I tried getting some record shots in the half light but when I checked later in the day the slow shutter speed only allowed grey blurs except for this one shot below.

As soon as I saw the image I realised it was Tundra not Taiga. The Jykell and Hyde nature of the camera again. I'd never have picked up its true identity without the single clear image, but then without the camera I'd have got the scope out, rain or no rain, and taken a more careful look in the first place!

Tundra Bean Goose; a Mie tick for me.

After the great start to the morning birds dried up on the fields (washed away more like), there were none of the usual Chestnut-eared Buntings, very very few Skylarks and no sign of Buff-bellied Pipits. Since last week quite a few fields have been flooded in preparation for rice planting. These can pull in a wide range of passage waders but over the next couple of hours I failed to find any. Even the usual Grey-headed Lapwings and the Little Ringed Plovers that started arriving a couple of weeks ago were absent.

A male lugens White Wagtail, one of very few birds in the open on the fields.

The only new migrant wader out on the flats was Great Knot. It seems there's one guest species in addition to the usual birds each visit. Last week it was eight Lesser Sand Plover, the week before a single Wood Sandpipier and before that a couple of Ruff. This time five Great Knot. It could be a very slow spring. On the bright side the Spotted Redshanks that have been around for a while were a bit more cooperative and I could get some better shots of two of them. The five Long-billed Dowitchers which have been here all winter suddenly flew in, or almost. They did one very quick circuit of the pond, just long enough to flash some reddish underparts, and disappeared again.

It would be great if these birds hang around long enough to complete their moult into breeding plumage.

In the afternoon the weather did actually improve, still overcast but lighter and with no rain. Good enough to encourage me to sit on the beach and check out the gulls.

Three shots of 2CY Slaty-backed.

Vega. 

Massive Vega. 

Massive Vega with small Taimyr.

Taimyr 2CY.

Taimyr 2CY.

Taimyr adult, sub-adult and 2CY with a 3CY Vega in the background.

Black Storks and Yellow Wagtails, Isahaya Bay

As I already posted, Booted Warbler was the star bird yesterday. But far from the only bird.

I arrived at the expanse of fields at about 10am and drove down the central road to the seawall to get a feel for the area. I didn't really expect to connect with the Storks on the way across, but it would have been nice. I was at a loss even where to start looking and a systematic approach might not be the best option with a potentially mobile target. But luck was on my side and after an hour, almost out of my search area towards the south, I caught site of a Stork flying off in the distance. It landed atop a utility pole and fortunately stayed there as a landmark while I made my way towards it. As I approached it dropped down onto the fields where I realised the other bird had been all along. I would never have found the birds at that location had I not seen one drop in, it really was amazing good luck to have been facing the right way to glimpse the distantly flying bird. A truck flushed them onto utility poles not far off as the Stork flies but it was some minutes before I could make my way dog-legging across the fields and bridging the levees across the flood gates. It was well worth it!

I'd almost forgotten I was in crane country but noisy flock of 33 Hooded Cranes crossing the fields was a reminder of what a great place Kyushu is for birding, though some birds, like this beautiful, very pale Merlin, I can see in Kyoto.

Hooded Cranes

The most productive location I found was an old maize field that was being cut. A huge flock of Rooks drew attention to it and though there were no hoped for Daurian Jackdaws with them there were plenty of other birds gathered around the rapidly shrinking stand of withered crop. About 50 European Starlings were easy to see, others less so. A Japanese Quail flushed by the harvester was totally unexpected.

Starlings perched in the final row of maize, everything was gone within 30 minutes of my arrival.

While the Quail was a surprise, it was nothing to the shock of finding the Booted Warbler of course and I can't resist posting a couple more shots of it.

There were also about 200 Buff-bellied Pipits and the same number of White Wagtails attracted to the feast. Though the only Red-throated Pipit I had was a bird calling overhead earlier in the day. There weren't any unusual White Wagtails as far as I could see but three Yellow Wagtails were far more exciting.


These are possibly the only winter Yellow Wagtails I've seen in Japan and it was interesting to see how much they differed, one very dark, another extensively yellow below and the third a pale grey individual.

Two shots of the dark bird with a very dark mask and almost thrush-like breast.

I only saw this bird briefly, it was much greener above and yellower below.

A very grey individual with greenish mainly restricted to the ear coverts but with some on the crown and mantle while pale yellow was limited to the throat.

As the afternoon wore on several Racoon Dogs came up onto the roadside and it was distressing to see how badly they're suffering with mange.

List of birds seen:-
Japanese Quail   1
Green Pheasant   1
Common Shelduck   1
Mandarin Duck   c50 on a reservoir en route to Isahaya
Eurasian Wigeon   100+
Mallard   common
Eastern Spot-billed Duck   common
Eurasian Teal   9
Common Pochard   common
Little Grebe   5
Great Crested Grebe   2
Black Stork   2
Grey Heron   several
Great White Egret   c5
Little Egret   10+
Pacific Reef Egret   1 en route
Great Cormorant   several
Eurasian Kestrel   4-5
Merlin   2
Osprey   several
Black Kite   several
Eastern Marsh Harrier   3-5
Hen Harrier   2
Eastern Buzzard   1
Moorhen   several
Common Coot   several
Hooded Crane   33
Northern Lapwing   c45
Common Snipe   1
Green Sandpiper   3-4
Rock Dove
White-bellied Green Pigeon   1 heard en route
Oriental Turtle Dove   fairly common
Common Kingfisher   5-10
Bull-headed Shrike   5-6
Rook   c500
Carrion Crow   fairly common
Large-billed Crow   several
Great Tit   1
Long-tailed Tit   a party en route
Japanese Skylark   common
Brown-eared Bulbul   fairly common
Japanese Bush Warbler   1 heard
Booted Warbler   1
Japanese White-eye   several
White-cheeked Starling   several
European Starling   50+
Pale Thrush   common
Dusky Thrush   fairly common
Daurian Redstart   common
Eurasian Tree Sparrow   common
Eastern Yellow Wagtail   3
Grey Wagtail   1
White Wagtail   very common
Japanese Wagtail   1
Red-throated Pipit   1 heard
Buff-bellied Pipit   common
Brambling   80-100
Oriental Greenfinch   several
Japanese Grosbeak   1 heard en route
Meadow Bunting   several
Black-faced Bunting   several
Reed Bunting   fairly common