Lesser Whitethroat

I don't remember exactly when it was, must surely have been well over 10 years ago? I saw my first and, until now, only Lesser Whitethroat in Japan. I'm only bringing the previous bird into the narrative because this species is so rare in Japan and to see two birds at unremarkable inland sites only about 25km apart is quite a coincidence.


A friend told me about the bird a couple of days ago and we went across to Aichi yesterday. The park gates open at eight and there was already a good number of cars when we rolled in at about half past. It was one of those easy twitches; too easy in fact.


The whir of shutters as we approached the group left no doubt the bird was showing... the sky was cloudless, the sun already pleasantly warm and there wasn't a breathe of air. In fact the air was unusually clear all day and snow capped mountains to the north look deceptively close. We stayed until about midday because although the bird was never missing for long, it was difficult to photograph. It spent most of its time fairly high in the trees of a small circular copse and was extremely active. It was typically obscured by foreground foliage creating very strong shadow contrasts across the well lit bird.  


Despite four hours on site I came away with precious few images worth keeping. But it was nevertheless a photo tick as the previous bird was in my sketching, note-taking, camera-free existence.

The face pattern could change from being distinctly masked to only slightly darker. In this case judiciously positioned shadows produce a boldly masked appearance. 

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After that we headed across to Lake Biwa to welcome the newly arrived Steller's Sea Eagle, which had fetched up about seven days ahead of its average annual return date. The line of cars parked in front of the Steller's hill was ridiculous! No doubt the mild, sunny weather encouraged people to linger longer in the hope of flight views. Actually the bird was surprisingly difficult to spot on the hillside, it's much easier once the leaves have fallen. The same may yet prove true for the Lesser Whitethroat too. The afternoon is a dreadful time to check the lake from Kohokucho as the lowering sun is directly opposite, it's more a time for the sunset-and-swans photo specialists.


There were very few Tundra Swans or geese on the lake and we focused our efforts on finding birds across the fields. Our only real success was a flock of 25 Common Starlings with about three White-cheeked mixed in. Common Starling was once a rarity in this part of Japan but I see them every winter nowadays, frequently in more than one location, and the number of individuals is also on the rise. A flock of 25 here is something quite new in my experience.

Common Starling, an increasingly frequent winter sight nowadays.

A reversed spot-the-rarity competition; a single White-cheeked with these Common Starlings.