Yuwandake area, Amami

As I've already explained in the Amami Nature Observation Forest post, I shifted my daily routine to a roughly 14:00-21:00 sleeping regimen to allow early morning and nocturnal birding without the headaches from lack of sleep I'd been suffering after pushing my self to do round the clock birding after arriving on the island.


Images from that post may also have given a false impression of bright in Amami weather. Don't be fooled, it was mostly rain as the following images will attest.


Amami Thrush was only seen at Yuandake (two individuals) but I've covered that, the main objective of the trip, in a different post.


I'd leave my hotel between 23:00-24:00 and drive south to Yuwan (Yuan?) and cover the roads through the forest in that general area before heading up to the top of the Yuwandake road just before dawn. Incidentally there was usually a Ryukyu Scops calling from the shrine near my hotel in Amami City and I saw others (and Woodcock) on roads on the outskirts of town without needing to head further south. But the quality of the forest down there made for a far better experience. If you go to Amami, why settle for Amami lite?


Firstly nocturnals in the rain; Amami Woodcock and Ryukyu Scops Owl, neither of which I'd photographed before, were my main bird targets. The Woodcock was a resounding success, it can be comfortably seen and photographed from the dry car interior, but I couldn't get my photo tick of the Scops. The Owl wasn't difficult to see per se but it required getting out of the car to get decent views, which was fine for me, but I didn't want to mess around with the camera in the rain. The honorary bird of the trip was to be Amami black rabbit which I'd missed altogether on my only previous trip to the island. This turned out to be far easier to see than I'd expected, even if slightly more camera shy than the Woodcock.

Roadside Amami Woodcocks were easy to pick up in the headlights. Some would flush early, though some of them would settle in the tree overhead, while others wouldn't budge and after a good view you could leave them in peace.

The best views were of birds not directly in the headlights. Some, like this one, allowed quite close approach on foot.

A big plus due to everything being sodden was the number of frogs on the road. I was crawling along anyway so frogs hopped across far more quickly than I approach but nevertheless it was necessary to keep an eye out for late dashers. I wish I'd had the time to stop and look at them all but there are only so many hours in a night and I was still hoping to get better views of Ryukyu Scops.

Otton's frog wasn't nearly as exotic-looking as some, but it was the largest species I saw.

There are 'beware of the rabbits' road signs all over the island but it was only in this area that I saw them. Saw them on every visit in fact though 12 sightings in a night was my highest count.

Unlike the Woodcock, rabbits didn't hang around so photo opportunities were more rushed.

And now diurnals in the rain: Lidth's Jay is quite common and found in various habitats but it's primarilly a forest bird and can therefore be tricky to photograph. Unobscured views were few and far between.

Lidth's Jay could be seen and even more commonly heard everywhere I went on the island. The word 'shower' clearly defines a brief period of rain during an otherwise lengthier dry period. Do we have a word to equally succinctly express the opposite, a brief dry spell in an otherwise rain soaked day, and if not why not? It's not as though the UK is particularly known for an abscence of precipitation, is it? Well, I photographed this Jay during a 'drier'. 

Pacific Swallow... in rain.

Ryukyu Minivet... in fog (low cloud), with alternating light and heavy drizzle. Not unlike crude oil, heavy is less preferred in most situations. 

Amami Nature Observation Forest

The Amami Nature Observation Forest might sound as though it's more geared to showcasing natural Amami to tourists than as a must visit site for serious birders. However, the well maintained trails from the visitor centre at the top of the mountain offer excellent access into the forest. Plus there were very few visitors judging by the total of only 4-5 parked cars over four visits. I never actually saw anyone on the trails. The forest also sweeps right down the western slopes to the coast and, though patchy, continues south along the ridge. It's far more extensive than might be inferred from a cursory glance at the map.


I visited this site four times yet still didn't really do it justice. Though I spent far more time in total further south, admittedly mostly nocturnal and in rainy weather, I ended up with a slightly larger number of species seen/heard from this site. Two visits were largely diurnal and in sunny weather (the only non-rainy periods of the trip), this probably accounts for the greater number of bird species recorded.


The first visit was purely because it provided a convenient place to get some birding in before checking into my hotel after arriving on the island mid-afternoon (March 31). Likewise it was conveniently in the general direction of the airport on departure day (April 5), though I did start birding pre-dawn on that occasion. I also paid a nocturnal visit here on the first day of the trip and spent an 'easy-paced' day on April 2. This easy day because I realised I was overdoing things and needed to get some sleep. Two hours sleep out of 36 was becoming stupidly counter productive so I cut short my April 1 nocturnal jaunt and had a long sleep at my hotel followed by a relaxing morning at this site before a little more sleep to adjusted my routine to going to bed at about 2pm and getting up around 9:30 pm. This worked fine for the rest of the trip.


There were three species I found here that I didn't connect with at all further south plus a couple more I only saw at this site: the three birds only encountered here were Black Woodpigeon, there were always 8-10 along the road near the visitor centre, a ficedula calling briefly down a steep slope off the road running down to the west coast of the island was a presumed Ryukyu Flycatcher which I couldn't get to see despite my best efforts. I can't confidently rule out a migrant Narcissus but Ryukyu is far more likely given the date and place. The third was an out-of-the-blue Ijima's Warbler, more of that later. The other birds of note were Ryukyu Robin which though very common everywhere I went was only seen in the early morning here. The same could be said of Ryukyu Green Pigeon, though a frequently heard bird further south, two birds usually feeding in trees along the roadside here were the only birds I actually saw.


On the other hand I didn't see Amami Thrush here. I did hear one from the road near the foot of the mountain on the east slope while driving up pre-dawn and another, which would have been in the forest hills just south of here, while drinking my early morning coffee at the Family Mart in Tatsugo on Route 58.


If I were to start a convenience store chain list, Amami Thrush is a bit of a blocker as far as the other national chains are concerned as Family Mart seems to be the only big name currently on the island.


One other point of note; on the final morning Grey-faced Buzzards were taking advantage of the fine weather and between about 8:15 and 8:30am I counted 164 passing over the narrow valley I was in. After driving down to the coast and then into another valley further south, there were more Buzzards on the move. If birds were leaving from across the island as a whole, the total number involved would have been vast.

Black Woodpigeons were easily seen, not so easily photographed. The white eye here being the result of the fill-in flash, this still before sunrise.

Ijima's Warbler, the one and only phyllosc of the trip.

I have to thank Yusuke (comment below) for setting me straight with this one. Walking along one of the forest trails, I was initially drawn to an unfamiliar call and on realising it seemed to be coming from a phyllosc dashing around high in the trees high overhead my first thought was whether this could have been Ijima's Leaf Warbler. Surprisingly the bird came down to eye level and sat motionless (when do they ever do that!) offering a totally unexpected chance to get a series of images. Unfortunately they were all more or less head-on and I then made two important errors with the identification; firstly I forgot about the unfamiliar call, or at least carelessly supposed it must have been a different and unknown bird and ignored it, and secondly I imagined I could see the rear crown stripe in the images whereas in fact there's only a greyish tint across the whole of the crown, almost producing grener lateral crown stripes. This imagined crown stripe along with yellowish undertail coverts ruled out both Ijima's and Claudia's Leaf warblers and led to the erroneous identification of Western Crowned on my back of the camera check in the field, one that I gave no further though to.


I've only been to Myakejima once where, I apart from a few glimpses, I only saw one Ijima's Leaf Warbler so this bird is a very good sighting indeed as far as I'm concerned.


A common bird of forest, forest edge, and even not all that close to the forest it would seem, is White-backed Woodpecker Dendrocopos leucotos owstoni. leucotos, ouch, it's such a cracking bird it deserves to be split for that reason alone, but sadly the IOC don't see it that way. What is genuinely surprising though, is why did I only see females? It's not just the four different individuals below, I never saw a male the whole time I was there.

This was almost the first bird of the trip, I had to unpack my bins and camera for this bird chipping away noisily at the roadside. I was even lucky enough to capture a chipped chip in this shot!

This nest was also right by the road and only about 150m from the previous bird. Not sure what ufo I captured here, definitely not a chipped chip.

Demolishing a branch in the forest, they really hammer away. Note the sunshine in this shot, arguably the biggest rarity of the trip.

Demolition moves on apace.

No series of White-backed images would be complete without at least one bird on the ground. There it is.

White-breasted Waterhen wasn't uncommon however, this bird at the top of the mountain aside, they were all in lowland areas, around market gardens, rivers, marshy bits and so on. These images are to try to restore some balance, there have been way too many dry images in this post. Water; water hanging in the air, water failing through the air, water dripping from everywhere, water pooling on the ground... that's what I'll remember. 

Amami Thrush - reaching 500 IOC for Japan

Following Brazil, I past the 500 point on my Japan list well over a year ago, however my tortoise of an IOC list still lagged. By the end of 2019 I was only two short, so, 2020 would surely be the IOC year. There's only been a single year in the last decade when I saw only one new bird, I was confident 2020 was a when not an if. The Surf Scoter at the end of February left me poised on 499, and also with a choice; it would be easy to go to Tokyo where there are a couple of established aliens I could add but would I really want Rose-ringed Parakeet as my 500th? I think not.


With Corvid-19 making holes in my schedule I saw the opportunity to go for Amami Thrush. This was an attractive choice not only because it was the only Amami (bird) endemic I didn't have but also because Amami the only major southern island I'd only visited once. Other influencing factors being the Thrush seems far more common and easily seen nowadays and that my previous visit was in my pre-camera owning days.


Staying with Corvid-19 a moment, in the week before I went to Amami I spent 10.5 hours standing on crowded commuter trains to and from work. Going to Amami meant 5.5 hours on near empty flights and buses to and from KIX. On the flight back there were 10 passengers in the 54 seats in front of me (the flight down was emptier) and the airport bus to Kyoto had only one other passenger onboard. On top of that there's sitting in an office compared to sitting alone in a car in a remote forest to consider. Birding definitely wins!


My focus was very much on nocturnal fauna and I did very limited daytime birding, only on arrival and departure days did I go anywhere unconnected to nocturnals. I settled into the routine of going to sleep at about 2pm and getting up around 9:30pm, spending the night and following morning in the forests. The two dedicated daytime trips were in the hope of finding paddyfields brimming with migrant waders, in the event I failed to find a paddyfield let alone waders. I'd had Swinhoe's and Pintail Snipe together on my previous visit.


One of the commonest birds on the island has to be Pale Thrush, they are everywhere. It felt as if they were especially common along forest roads at dawn, before I connected with Amami Thrush they were frustrating to say the least. I had my first Amami Thrush sighting on my first full day on the island, pressure off, and that bird was obligingly predictable. I could park at any time and, if it wasn't already on view, I knew I wouldn't have to wait long before it appeared to patrol its favourite stretch of road.


With unlimited time, this bird would give unrivaled opportunities to get frame filling shots in perfect light. Even with five days on the island it wasn't quite as easy as might be surmised. If it came up the nearside it was impossible to photograph through the windscreen and to close as it squeezed by below the open window. Thus 50% of sightings could be discounted from the photographers' perspective... but what amazing views! If it came up the offside, it was sometimes in the roadside gutter out of sight, sometimes it would dash past on a whir of legs and only a few times would it pause right next to the car. These few optimal times need further assessment, sometimes it was in fog (low cloud), sometimes in pouring rain, sometimes when it was still almost totally dark and only a few when the conditions were just right. Goldilocks has no idea how easy she had it.

If you want better shots than those look elsewhere. You're waisting your time scrolling down any further because that's definitely as good as it gets in terms of close/sharpish.

Mistle Thrush in Shikoku

Thanks to Covid-19 my wife and I both find we have rather more free time on our hands than we'd like. Last week we decided to go on a road trip taking in several places of interest, one of them birdy. This would have been my first, and long overdue, winter visit to Choshi.


However, at the last minute my wife had a call from work and she had to put in one afternoon. Only one afternoon but right slap bang in the middle of our proposed trip. The alternative was just a 'local' two-night trip which still included one birdy stop.


I've known about the Mistle Thrush on Shikoku for some time, unlike the Chinese Thrush and Red-throated Thrush, this bird has been a sticker. I hadn't planned to go to see this bird because Shikoku is an unnecessarily expensive trip compared to the other Kansai neighbours. What am I saying? I hadn't planned to go to see this bird because I've seen one closer to home and it's already on my Kansai list let alone my Japan list. It's nevertheless true that Shikoku is more expensive than the other Kansai neighbours though, due to bridge tolls.


Well... I started to write this weeks ago, I've even spent a week on Amami Oshima since then. More of that later. Three weeks ago now that I've checked. Anyway, back to the Mistle Thrush!


We arrived in the early morning finding the place with ease. It's just an open area at a road junction with little nearby cover, somehow not at all promising but there the bird was. Scanning the field I couldn't believe it was really there, as if to order, conveniently close to the roadside.

And this was the bird six years ago...