Spectacular Red-necked Phalarope passage

The recent long staying Nordmann's Greenshank seemed to have finally moved on the last time I was in Mie (Sept 21) and it was a less rare wader species that grabbed the headlines that day. Red-necked Phalarope is anything but rare in Japan but unless you take ferry trips at the right times of year they can be quite difficult to see, and certainly not in big numbers. I only rarely see them inland near Kyoto city, these birds following a recent severe typhoon were a predictable event and something I specifically went looking for.


This Phalarope event along the coast at Matsusaka in Mie prefecture was of a totally different magnitude.


At some point in the late morning I was going through one of the Greater Crested Tern flocks perched on bamboo poles in the shallow coastal waters when I noticed a distant flock of small waders flying by way out to sea. I didn't pay much attention at first as they were too distant to identify but their overall paleness suggested Sanderling. Over the next 20 minutes or so I was there I saw more flocks which struck me as decidedly odd. Not only because I haven't seen anything quite like that before but at high tide, as it was, I'd expect Sanderlings to be roosting above the high water mark rather than flying way out over the water. Plus there was an awful lot of them and even though Sanderling is common along this coast I don't usually see so many aggregations of this size. Unless of course I was seeing the same birds flying back and forth but that would be even more unusual   behaviour for Sanderling. Phalarope crossed my mind but as I said they were too far out to identify.


I spent some time driving slowly round the endless fields and when I next returned to the coast a few kilometres further north I immediately saw a flock of waders much closer to shore. They had dashed past only allowing tail views disappearing across the bay but I was sure these were indeed phalaropes and I was kicking myself for not reacting more quickly and getting a Red-necked/Grey identification.


I needn't have worried, after a minute or two another flock came by, then another and yet another. Numbers ranged from about 15 birds in some groups to over 100 in others. Some flocks were a little distant, others just beyond the tideline. Some flocks even gained height over the seawall and headed across the fields behind me. In fact the last flock I saw, about 70 birds, was flying over a village and across the fields as I was driving away at 17:30.


There were a huge number of birds involved and I wonder whether they'd entered Ise Bay from the Pacific and toured the bay or if they'd taken a shortcut across the country from the Japan Sea; I suspect the latter.

Some of the first closer birds I saw in the shallow water close to shore.

Some were pretty close...

Some very close...

Some were coming off the water altogether.

I wonder how many I missed crossing the fields behind me.

Finally a few of those Greater Crested Tern I'd been sifting through when I first spotted distant waders. The Terns normally sit on the tops of bamboo poles which are frequently very distant in this part of the bay with its extensive shallows. If you're lucky you can catch them with the Black-tailed Gulls on the sandbars.

Typhoon visitors in Kyoto

Tuesday's typhoon was the strongest to pass through this area in over 50 years. All four old houses in my row sustained roof damage but fortunately nothing more serious. It was strange to feel the kitchen floor pushing up against my feet, less so was the upstairs walls bowing inwards almost two inches.


When I made a quick early morning visit to Ogura yesterday, I was a little surprised to find the rice fields looking as if nothing had happened. The rice is getting close to harvest in this area and the crop was looking great, upright and ready for cutting. The same couldn't be said of some of the farmers' structures dotted across the fields. Metal frameworks covered with plastic sheeting don't stand up to typhoons quite as well as the rice it seems. This one looks more like an art installation.

This shot also hints at some of the development that has taken place over the years. When I first arrived in Kyoto there was a huge uninterrupted area of excellent birding habitats just south of the city. Alas, no more.

I haven't had time to do so much birding recently and heading down to Ogura early in the morning is one way to keep my had in. I was down a few days before the typhoon and saw these two regulars. Kestrels used to be a winter visitor in this area but now it's a reasonably common feature of summer birding too. Greater Painted Snipe breed here but being Painted Snipe you're unlikely to know that they breed here; they aren't exactly cooperative as a rule. That particular day I saw a female dash for cover then this less shy male.

I'm not sure where the local pair of Kestrels nest, perhaps on the elevated roads that criss-cross the fields.

If you're really lucky, you can find some quite large post-breeding gatherings on the fields. The key is finding a suitable field that will attract the birds, unfortunately there might not be such a field every year.

The main reason for heading down yesterday morning was to look for Red-necked Phalarope. It's a scarce, very scarce, visitor to Kyoto which first off requires a suitably flooded field to bring a passing bird down, that's rare enough in itself but there is one at the moment. The second requirement is a large dose of luck...  or a typhoon.


Better still is a typhoon and luck, and my luck was in for once. After first checking the Painted Snipe field pre-dawn without success, I watched the early morning arrival of migrant Eastern cattle and Intermediate Egrets from their roost sites then made my way to the river embankment and along to the flooded field. I could already see three large waders while driving bumpily along the embankment and stopping to check showed them to be Stilts with, much more interestingly, some small stuff. Black-winged Stilts aren't by any means rare in Kansai, nevertheless it isn't a species I ever expect to see at Ogura. It all comes back to the problem of an absence of suitably inundated fields at just the right times of year. Even more encouraging than the small waders, those two parked cars across another field weren't early morning farmers as I had assumed... there were two photographers already sitting right by the flooded field!


There were nine Red-necked Phalaropes on the field. A flock! And a personal best for Kyoto. Apart from the Stilts there was also a fairly confiding Long-toed Stint on the field and I heard flyover Common Greenshank and Common Snipe while I was there.

The three Stilts flew off at about 06:45 proving that the early birder catches the goodies.

I'd planned to add Stint shots but they'll have to wait. Though today is supposed to be a day off I still have to go in, otherwise I'd have been birding. At least it gives me the chance to get an infrequent blog post done.

Hegurajima bookends for May

Unbelievable, already the 27th... where did May go?


Well, wherever it went, Northern Hawk Cuckoo singing over my house a few nights ago spurred me to visit Ashyu Forest (central Kyoto prefecture) for the first time this spring as soon as I had time. Time turned out to be the weekend, when I also managed to get out to Hegurajima for only the second time of the season.


I didn't have any offshore plans for Golden Week this year but instead I had hoped to make day trips to Hegurajima. This isn't ideal for several reasons. First, the huge number of birders/photographers present during Golden Week means you're never alone on a trail, the best you can hope for is that you aren't part of a shuffling line spaced about 30 metres apart - that actually happened when I was there on May 1st, I almost felt I had to indicate and wait for a gap in the birder traffic when I exited woodland onto the main north/south trail. Second, the ferry only gives you the least optimal midday period on the island to find the birds. Finally, and worst of all, will the ferry even sail? Ferry cancellations aren't unexpected in autumn when the Japan Sea is less friendly, whereas spring is usually less risky. Of course 'usually less risky' doesn't mean sailings can be relied on as spring of last year proved and this year hasn't been any better, last week was the first time there were more sailings than cancellations.


My visit to Ashyu was really enjoyable, it was great to be in the field and not see another soul in 18 hours! Of course I heard many more birds than I saw but Grey Nightjars were good with two birds sitting on the road in the early hours and a third high overhead in display flight after first light. The heard only highlights were a Japanese Night Heron and a Japanese Scops Owl.


Ruddy Kingfishers were singing early in the morning but as it was sunny, apart from a few calls, it was as if they hadn't existed shortly after the sun crested the hills. Cuckoos, Northern Hawk, Oriental and Lesser vanished in the same way. One bird that never even appeared was Asian Brown Flycatcher, where were they? But a much bigger question was raised. I heard a Kamchatka Leaf Warbler singing in the forest and for an instant when it started singing I was delighted thinking it was Japanese Leaf. The only previous occasion I've heard 'Japanese Leaf' here was before the Arctic complex was split and now I wonder whether that too was a passage Kamchatka. It seems this area is just outside the Japanese Leaf range.

One of several Grey Wagtails around the car park in the forest. 'Car park' means a broad muddy turning area where the road finally ends.

On the not-a-bird front this monster earthworm was a stand-out.

At about 40cm long this would give any early bird pause for thought. Note the 10 Yen coin next to it for scale. 

Shortly after I saw this hummingbird hawk moth daylight was gone and a bigger surprise was an otherwise invisible bush across steep dark ravine lit up by glow worms like a ghostly Christmas tree.

After nightfall on the second day I drove north to Wajima as it seemed very likely the ferry would be operating the following morning.


There was a time, a long time in fact, I'd be out on the ferry deck from port to port but after multiple sailings each year, year after year, with very little to show for it I tend to catch up on sleep nowadays. Admittedly I visit the island more often in autumn than the more productive spring. When I went out on May 1st I did try for seabirds and the trip produced about 30 Ancient Murrelets in small parties, at least two Japanese Murrelets, ever present Streaked Shearwaters and the Pelagic Cormorants which are still around at that time of year. I had also hoped for good numbers of phalaropes, Red-necked can be common and usually there are a few Grey (Red) thrown in. In the event there were only a handful of Red-necked. This time, two days ago, I did sleep on the crossing but still managed a single Red-necked Phalarope through the window.

One of several small fly-by parties of Ancient Murrelets.

A few were slightly closer.

Red-necked Phalaropes with an Ancient Murrelet.

On the island at the beginning of the month this Sakhalin Leaf Warbler was the only bird of interest I managed good shots of. That was my first ever trip to Hegura when I was glad to be taking the ferry back to the mainland, I've never seen the place so birdless.

Strictly speaking I ought to call this a Sakhalin/Pale-legged Leaf as I didn't hear it but Sakhalin is the overwhelming favourite here.

I wasn't terribly optimistic about this trip, even though there have been some really good birds between my visits, because the weather hadn't looked too productive all week. However the hill behind Wajima harbour was thick with Kamchatka Leaf Warblers which put me in a much better frame of mind before the ferry left. Kamchatka were absolutely everywhere on the island, Asian Brown Flycatchers were pretty common too. No wonder there were none at Ashyu, they're all still on vacation!

Kamchatka Leaf Warbler

A clean looking Asian Brown Flycatcher, even paler in the sun. 

Asian Brown looking dark.

No amount of sun is going to make a Dark-sided Flycatcher look pale.

The best/rarest birds on the island were Black-naped Oriole, a flock of Common Crossbills and a Dollarbird; hmmm so okay, nothing major. But there were so many birds around, and such a variety of scarce stuff, there surely had to be something important waiting to be found. If there was, neither I nor anyone else found it during my four hours on the island.


Cuckoos were fairly obvious, Lesser and Common at any rate.

Lesser Cuckoo.

Black Woodpigeon is ever present but it's not often they sit about in the open like this.

It wasn't only Isabelline... there's a Tree Pipit mis-ID

I covered most of the island in my allotted 4.5 hours but finding anything is even more a matter of luck than usual. Mugimaki Flycatchers were hard to miss, possibly the most numerous flycatcher on the island, I've only been once when there were more present. But not a single male!

This Mugimaki looks like it's just done 10 rounds with a local moggie.

Of more interest was a male Common Crossbill, an island tick for me, but its presence wasn't so surprising given this winter was an invasion year. The number of spodocephala Black-faced Bunting was also good to see, it's nice to get so many clear-cut males.

Thrushes were well reasonably common with Brown-headed, Dusky and a single White's seen. There were a few robins too, one Siberian Blue was particularly popular with photographers and had quite a crowd gathered for its sporadic appearances atop a rock in the sasa. I didn't have time to hang around and wait for it to appear but on both occasions I walked past the shutters burst into action and there it was. I heard another in deep undergrowth and likewise two trilling Japanese Robins. I also heard two Siberian Rubythroats and managed to glimpse one as it flashed across the track. Things were easier on the phyllosc front Eastern Crowned, Yellow-browed and Sakhalin Leaf were all reasonably easy to see.

Sakhalin Leaf in woodland understorey.

As departure time drew closer I headed back down to the harbour and it seemed fitting that another good find was waiting on "the green", two Tree Pipits flew up and perched on the fence just metres from where the Isabelline Shrike had been a very short four hours earlier. My snap identification before I had to dash for my ferry was erroneous, they were Olive-backed. Nevertheless these birds are of interest and I'll post more later on these two.

The ferry trip back to Wajima, so often a let down, was quite good this time. A diver, possibly Red-throated flew by and Two Japanese Murrelets which dropped onto the sea were something I hadn't previously seen from this route. There were several flocks of Red-necked Phalaropes too, I tried to take some shots of the nearest flock without getting great results but when I checked I was completely taken aback to see a breeding plumage Grey (Red) Phalarope amongst them!

Spot the odd one out.

The ferry docked at 16:30 and rather than the usual mad dash south I took a leisurely drive along the beautiful coastline in glorious late afternoon sun to check out Rokkozaki. Its position of the tip of the Noto Peninsular looks favourable to pull in migrants and satellite imagery seems to show a good variety of interesting habitat. I thought that if it were as good as it looked the place could be a great alternative to Hegura if the ferry were cancelled. I'll post the results later but below is a full list of species seen or heard on the 6th.

Eastern Spot-billed Duck   several Wajima and elsewhere
diver sp   1 from the ferry
Streaked Shearwater   fairly common from the ferry
Grey Heron   2
Great White Egret   4
Little Egret   1 near Kanazawa
cormorant sp   1 in Wajima harbour
Pelagic Cormorant   c15
Peregrine   1
Black Kite   1
Eurasian Sparrowhawk   1
Pacific Golden Plover   1 heard near Kanazawa
Common Sandpiper   1 Wajima
Red-necked Phalarope   c90 from the ferry
Grey Phalarope   1 from the ferry
Black-tailed Gull very common
Japanese Murrelet   2 from the ferry
Oriental Turtle Dove   2-3
Feral Rock Dove   Wajima
Oriental Cuckoo   1-2 heard
Common Kingfisher   1
Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker   1 Rokkozaki
Ashy Minivet   1
Isabelline Shrike   1
Jay   1 near Wajima
Rook   1
Carrion Crow   Wajima
Large-billed Crow   1-2 (plus elsewhere)
Varied Tit   heard Noto Pen
Barn Swallow   a few, common elsewhere
Asian House Martin   c25 Rokkozaki
Skylark   2
Zitting Cisticola   1heard Noto Pen
Brown-eared Bulbul
Japanese Bush Warbler   common
Asian Stubtail   1 heard Rokkozaki
Yellow-browed Warbler   several
Sakhalin Leaf Warbler   3-4
Eastern Crowned Warbler   several
Japanese White-eye 2-3 heard
Wren   several heard near Kanazawa
White-cheeked Starling   Noto Pen
White's Thrush   1
Eye-browed Thrush   several Rokkozaki
Brown-headed Thrush   c10
Dusky Thrush   several
Siberian Rubythroat   1 plus 1 heard
Japanese Robin   2 heard
Siberian Blue Robin   1 plus 1 heard
Sibeian Stonechat   2
Blue Rock Thrush   3+ Noto Pen
Asian Brown Flycatcher   2
Narcissus Flycatcher   several
Mugimaki Flycatcher   10-15
Blue and White Flycatcher   several
Eurasian Tree Sparrow   Noto Pen
White Wagtail   several, one fly-by was a non-lugens
Japanese Wagtail   1 Rokkozaki
Tree Pipit   2
Olive-backed Pipit   1
pipit sp   1
Brambling   c10
Oriental Greenfinch   common
Common Crossbill   1 male
Japanese Grosbeak   2 Rokkozaki
Meadow Bunting   1 off the top of my head this might be a Hegura first for me!
Little Bunting   2-3
Black-faced Bunting   common including several spodocephala