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.

Hegurajima: April 22 day trip

After spending a day and a half in Mie I made my way slowly to Ishikawa. The weather was dreadful, heavy rain throughout and a diversion due to a bad traffic accident didn't help. Of course I didn't mind in the slightest what the conditions were like on a relocation day and all that rain followed by forecast patchy fog over the sea the following morning had me rubbing my hands at the thought of all the migrants that might have made landfall on Hegurajima.


I picked up a few birds on the way, Brown Dipper was the only one I was unlikely to see elsewhere. I was curious what kind of bird list I could build driving round compared to my usual week spent on an off-shore island at this time of year. I was confident I could do better with numbers but could I get the quality?


The ferry to the island is usually an anticlimax, I rarely see much on this route, however there were a few things this time. An Arctic Skua was a first for me on this stretch of water, though I did once have a South Polar. Two groups of presumed Japanese Murrelets I saw turned out to be Ancient when I looked more closely. Two very distant parties of waders flying in close proximity, birds in one group slightly larger, were probably Red-necked and Grey Phalarope as both parties settled on the sea. Streaked Shearwaters were as common as ever.

Morphing murrelets; these expected Japanese turned out to be Ancient.

 

One of the second group of four which was closer.

A Streaked Shearwater letting its inner Colonectris really shine through; it could almost be a Cory's.

Approaching the island Pelagic Cormorant became common, I only saw one Temminck's out there.

 

Once on the island it didn't take long to see there were plenty of birds around. There were two or three Daurian Redstarts in the harbour, it's about three weeks since I saw my last around Kyoto, and Bramblings were everywhere, some looking very smart now. They've already disappeared from my usual haunts too. On the incoming side of the balance, Stejneger's Stonechats were very common on the island. Surprisingly I hadn't seen any prior to these this spring, they're usually one of the earlier passage birds on a broad front through my region.

A smart looking Brambling.

 

Stejneger's Stonechat was possibly the commonest migrant on the island, certainly the most conspicuous.

It didn't take long to find the first non-common bird, well Hoopoe is hardly rare, on the lawn behind the doc's. I bumped into it again later and heard it several times on my for-hour dash to cover as much of the island as practical before the ferry went back. In fact I hardly scratched the surface.

 

Hoopoe isn't a big rarity but they're always nice to see.

From there I quickly had a look at the coast and found a Swinhoe's Snipe on the grassy path to one of the headland shrines, then into the woodland where I flushed a Woodcock. There were plenty of Great and Coal Tits about, the odd Eastern Crowned Warbler, a Goldcrest and three or four Japanese Robins, heard only of course. A Long-tailed Rosefinch was a surprise, I've seen far more Common Rosefinch on islands in this season over the years.


No mega then; time to move on. Just as I was coming out of the trees I noticed a Japanese Sparrowhawk mobbing a Goshawk, or so it seemed at first glance judging by size but when I got the bins on them I was surprised to see a Northern Sparrowhawk mobbing a smallish harrier. Was this going to be the mega?! No, a Hen. I should have guessed, why do I get so excited over every bird? Because it's Hegura I suppose, it could have been a Pallid...




A mega approaches?

It's almost as if it sees me watching so closes its fingers to keep me guessing.



I wasn't fooled for a moment.

Next stop the harbour edge, it always holds something of interest. On the way I noticed there were no photographers at the hide, platform I should say, overlooking a shallow pool constructed to attract whatever is lurking in the undergrowth. It's funny really, two other people had taken the same ferry out in the morning and I only saw two others on the island. Great season, great weather, loads of birds and the place is all but deserted. Yet in a week, the Golden Week holiday, I bet the place will be packed to the gills. It's so difficult to book accommodation then which is fair enough with so many birders having inflexible work schedules but a good few of the visitors are retired. Why aren't they there now? The birding is fantastic and I very much doubt the Japanese national holiday will loom large in the birds' migration strategy. But as I was saying, the observation platform, I'm glad I stopped to take a peek. There was nothing rare but there were tons of birds flitting around, the best for me was an Asian Stubtail. Stubtails were singing all over the place, they're a common summer visitor around Kyoto, but they aren't the easiest thing to photograph.

Asian Stubtail: a photo tick.

One of 12 Blue and White Flycatchers I saw on the island (nine were males).

Red-flanked Bluetail.

Presumably a 2CY by the look of it.

I finally got down to the harbour area where the highlight was a party of three Greater Short-toed Larks. I see this species every spring, but three, I've never seen a flock of them before!

Red-throated Pipit with Greater Short-toed Lark.

A "flock" of Greater Short-toed Larks.



 



Then it was ferry back, a bite to eat behind the wheel and check out some fields further up the coast for waders to make use of the remaining day light. This wader checking idea was on the strength of having heard a Greenshank's chu-chu-chu behind Wajima that morning but apart from a snipe (I suspected Latham's) that crept off through the grass and into thicker cover before I could get down to the serious business of identification there was nothing.


So the wader idea was a bust but it had been an enjoyable day. In terms of quality I'd come up with a few species I don't see very often and in the numbers game, after 2.5 days in the field, I was on 123. This was definitely better than being based on an off-shore island. One more day to go.


List of species recorded today:-
Green Pheasant   2 plus 2 heard
Eurasian Wigeon   2 NP (Noto Peninsular)
Eastern Spot-billed Duck   7 NP
Eurasian Teal   c40 NP
Streaked Shearwater   100s
Little Grebe   1 NP
Grey Heron   3-4
Great White Egret   5 plus 7 NP
Little Egret   1 plus 4 NP
Great Cormorant   2 Wajima harbour
Temminck's Cormorant   1
Pelagic Cormorant   c50
Osprey   1 NP
Black Kite   2
Hen Harrier   1
Northern Sparrowhawk   1
Woodcock   1
Swinhoe's Snipe   1
snipe sp   1 NP
Common Greenshank   1 Wajima
phalarope sp   two small flocks seemed to be one of Red-necked, the other Grey
Black-tailed Gull   common, c1000 on flooded fields NP
Vega Gull   5
Slaty-backed Gull   1
Arctic Skua   1
Ancient Murrelet   8
racing pigeon   1 the pigeons on Hegura are always kitted out in racing legwear
Rock Dove   several NP
Oriental Turtle Dove   several
Common Kingfisher   1 NP
Hoopoe   1
Bull-headed Shrike   1 heard NP
Carrion Crow   c50 NP
Large-billed Crow   1
Great Tit   several
Coal Tit   several
Barn Swallow   3-4, several NP
Asian House Martin   c20 NP
Greater Short-toed Lark   3
Brown-eared Bulbul   fairly common NP
Asian Stubtail   2 plus many heard
Japanese Bush Warbler   common
Arctic Warbler complex   1
Eastern Crowned Warbler   c10
Japanese White-eye   common
Goldcrest   1
Chestnut-cheeked Starling   3 NP
White-cheeked Starling   1
White's Thrush   1
Japanese Thrush   1 plus 1 heard
Eyebrowed Thrush   1
Pale Thrush   common
Dusky Thrush   common
Japanese Robin   5 heard
Red-flanked Bluetail   1
Daurian Redstart   8
Stejneger's Stonechat   common
Blue Rock Thrush   1
Dark-sided Flycatcher   1
Asian Brown Flycatcher   1
Narcissus Flycatcher   1
Blue and White Flycatcher   12
Eurasian Tree Sparrow   several NP
Grey Wagtail   1 plus 2 NP
White Wagtail   several
Japanese Wagtail   several NP including a juvenile
Olive-backed Pipit   2
Red-throated Pipit   2
Buff-bellied Pipit   1 plus c10 NP
Brambling   30+
Oriental Greenfinch   common
Eurasian Siskin   1
Long-tailed Rosefinch   1
Hawfinch   1
Meadow Bunting   sev NP
Elegant Bunting   1
Japanese Yellow Bunting   1
Black-faced Bunting   common plus 1 spodocephala and 1 possible sordida (this isn't on the Japan list according to the most recent OSJ list, more of this later)