Silver Gull on Ishigaki

 A better title might have been "Well that was unexpected". It certainly was.

I booked my flight at 22:40 last Wednesday night and flew down at 07:25 the following morning. There's something to be said for booking this late, you can reserve a seat in an empty row and expect the other seats to remain empty. A strategy not without risk, of course.

I'd heard a friend had waited until 17:00 to connect with the bird the previous day and as I would have less than 24 hours on the island, I was a bit tense on the way down. The flight arriving nearly 30 minutes late didn't help: How can they lose that much time because of a little turbulence? The likely answer being to ensure the turbulence was only a little, but I wasn't feeling very understanding at the time. 

It's funny how each minor delay is magnified into a major catastrophe when time is precious, next it was tourists dragging their feet to the car rental shuttle bus. What are they doing?! How long does it take to get through such a small terminal?! In reality they probably didn't take more than five minutes longer than I had. And the rental staff! Why is the guy dealing with me slower than the other guy? Wow, that must have cost me all of 10 seconds. Once done, thanks to Ms Google's directions (though one "slight right" should clearly have been a "go straight"... plus 40 seconds), I arrived at my destination. 

I was really hoping this wasn't going to be a grind-it-out day and that I'd find the bird sitting by the river mouth, get great views then (get some coffee) move on to see some of the other local specialities. Apparently the new arrival is developing a routine which involves loafing at the river mouth when the tide has dropped, but as I said, that hadn't been the case the previous day, so it's debatable whether the bird is aware its supposed routine. Next stop was the main harbour, only 500m along the road.

And there it was! I glimpsed the gull circling over the waterfront as I passed a gap between two buildings. Luck was on my side after all. It had vanished by the time I'd stopped and made my way through the gap, but that had been it, no doubt, a brief glimpse was enough to identify it. But which way had it gone, ahead to the harbour or back towards the river? A mental coin toss resulted in the wrong choice but I was soon on it at the river mouth after a quick scan of the birdless harbour. It would have been even sooner had I not stopped off at a convenience store en route back to the river. Well, it's not as if I hadn't seen a Silver Gull before and one in Japan is much the same as one in Australia as far as appearance goes. Stocked with cold water and hot coffee I was much better placed to enjoy the bird.

There wasn't a huge crowd to welcome our newest addition to the Japan list, some were locals judging by the brief appearances they made on site, while others had also made the trip down from the main islands. For we who had made the journey, a flight view was imperative. So we waited, and waited, and waited. Some moved back from the seawall and under the shade of a lone tree, while the more hardy/foolhardy stuck it out under the sun. The bird sat, occasionally walking a little, on a band bar in front of us; where are the beach joggers and dog walkers when you need them? If this had been my usual gulling spot there would have been countless people along to disturb the gulls by this time. After two and a half hours someone did walk by and flushed it, the relief was palpable, two minutes after that the skies opened and torrential rain hammered down for 20 minutes. Luck was really on my side.

A flock of distant Black-naped Terns had been a constant reminder that there was another tick, Gull-billed Tern, waiting for me the other side of Ishigaki city. That had to be my next stop.

Reaching the bay, I stopped at the first possible spot and saw very distant terns hunting crabs further round the bay; surely the Gull-billed? The only difficulty after that was finding parking close enough to the area I estimated they should be in once I driven further along the coast.

Quite why I'd never run into one in the past is simply a matter of never having been in the right place at the right time. I'd bumped into plenty of White-winged and Caspian Terns but Gull-billed had been a bit of a bogey. As it turned out, there were now three of them present over the exposed mud and sand on the bay. As well as Whiskered, Little and Black-naped Terns and a few wader species.

The waders included Greater Sand Plover (1), Kentish Plover (several), Common Ringed Plover (1), Grey Plover (1), Turnstone (2), Red-necked Stint (1), Whimbrel (1), Terek Sandpiper (2) and the incidental tattler in the first shot above. With such a broad grey flank concolourous with the underwing it looks surprisingly suggestive of non-breeding Wandering Tattler and as other incidental shots of this bird do nothing to disabuse me of the suggestion, it's a great pity I didn't pay more attention at the time. 

Greater Sand Plover, the only reasonably close wader.

A few waders in Mie and Kyushu

I hinted in the previous post Nordmann's Greenshank post that some waders have been more cooperative recently and here are a few shots of a few of those birds.

LRP

LRP

Greater Sand Plover

Whimbrel

Far Eastern Curlew

Far Eastern Curlew. You might be forgiven for thinking this is a Whimbrel at first glance because of the short bill and what appears to be a latteral crown stripe.

Common Redshank

Wood Sandpiper

Wood Sandpiper

Grey-tailed Tattler

Grey-tailed Tattler

Terek Sandpiper

Terek Sandpiper

Common Sandpiper

Ruddy Turnstone

Ruddy Turnstone

Red-necked Stint

Broad-billed Sandpiper

Broad-billed Sandpiper

charadrius

Common Ringed Plover is scarce to rare in the region, they do occasionally turn up at Nanko Bird Sanctuary in Osaka and probably elsewhere. There's always the possibility that they aren't quite unusual enough to make the local news but I've only found one personally and that was just to the west of Kansai, in Shimane.

January 2009, Lake Shinji (Shimane). My one and only NRP.

Little Ringed Plover is a common summer visitor to Kansai and very common spring and autumn migrant. Wet fields, damp fields or even city centre car parks and building sites, it's the one of the most reliably found waders in the region.

A mid-April arrival at Ogura (Kyoto).

Post-breeding adult August 2013, Ogura (Kyoto).

Juvenile Mie, August 2011.

Semipalmated Plover is a major rarity in Japan, the bird below spent a winter near Nagoya.

The slight webbing isn't visible but the narrow white spur between lores and base of the upper mandible is the clearest indicator of its identity here. Other supportive features are the almost broken, narrow-centred breast band which is blacker than NRP (tundrae), and possibly the blacker forehead and paler coverts panel. 

A good view of the short, somewhat retrousse bill.

Semipalmated Plover early March 2007.

Long-billed Plover is another species common in Kansai but which can be less easy to find in other parts of the country. They breed and can be found year round on the Katsura River running through the western suburbs of Kyoto.

Long-billed Plover near the Uji River (Kyoto) 9 December 2012.

Long-billed Plovers on the Katsura River (Kyoto), note the unusually prominent white band behind the black forehead on the rear bird, 16 January 2011.

Adult with chick on the Katsura River (Kyoto), 24 April 2011.

Kentish Plovers become a common feature when I'm gulling on the lower Yamato River in Osaka during March. They remain common throughout summer in suitable breeding habitat.

This seems a late date for such a young bird, this was brought into focus with as there were as many newly arrived Sanderling as KPs on the beach, Mie 17 August 2011.

Three rather different-looking birds in a car park on Yonaguni 8 April 2013. The bird in the middle image in particular is very pale with a limited black forehead patch.

Lesser Sand Plover is common and easily found on passage at suitable coastal sites such as Nanko in Osaka and in Mie.

Adult Lesser Sand Plovers, Osaka 22 September 2007.

Juvenile Lesser Sand Plover, Osaka 22 September 2007.

Breeding plumage Lesser Sand Plovers, Yonaguni 8 April 2013.

Greater Sand Plovers are by no means rare but I normally only see one or two per migration season in Kansai.

Two Greater Sand Plovers together with the Lessers above. Unlike the Lessers these two show no sign of acquiring breeding plumage.

The final species in this posting, Oriental, won't be seen in Kansai and the following shots (8 April 2013) are of birds on Yonaguni, a famous location in Japan for the species.

Apparently this wasn't the best looking bird while I was on the island but it was certainly the best I saw. It's habit of walking under birders' cars could be frustrating if it were your own it sat under!

No apologies for more Oriental shots...