Hahajima

I spent a night on Hahajima over the weekend primarily in the hope of seeing the Ogasawara subspecies Oriental Greenfinch; an armchair tick in the making I hope. On top of that I was looking forward to getting a photo tick of Bonin White-eye. The latter turned out to be pretty straight forward but the Greenfinch was a different story. I tried several likely places but the sports ground was the only spot worth trying. And try I did. I heard Greenfinch several times, it was close, but it was always out of sight over the nearest tree tops. Finally I managed flight views which would normally have been a major frustration but in the limited time I had I was delighted to get any view at all.


So to that photo tick of Bonin White-eye...

Bonin White-eye is a cracking bird and like all good looking birds is that much better for being difficult to see. Difficult because of the time and effort to get to Hahajima that is, once there it's quite common. But then Japanese White-eye and Blue Rock Thrush take common to a whole other level, they can be found almost everywhere. Blue Rock Thrush in woodland...? That was a first.

Blue Rock Thrush over the fruit fields...

Blue Rock Thrush in the park...

Blue Rock Thrush coming to Asahi Super Dry...

Japanese White-eye, are absolutely everywhere. Stejnegeri and alani were both introduced to Ogasawara from the Izu Is and Volcano Is respectively so birds here are probably all hybrids.

The local race of Eastern Buzzard is another species with little or no competition on the islands, it's widespread and also approachable. Both the Buzzards I photographed were ringed and I wouldn't be in the least surprised if the islands have the highest density of ringed birds in the country. I noticed many accessorized birds, large and small, and one of the Buzzards must have been carrying a telemetry device judging by the antenna just visible in the images below.

One of the common Eastern Buzzards photographed late in the day.



A different bird earlier in the day. At first I thought the glazed eye was an artifact but it looks the same in every image. The antenna is visible in both these images.

There were a few migrants around and waiting for the Greenfinch to show itself I was entertained by waders and Eastern Yellow Wagtails on the sports field. The Wagtails were usually at the far side of the field and when one did come closer it would be invisible in a patch of flowers, only popping up intermittently hence the only closer images are flight shots. There were always Ruddy Turnstones and Pacific Golden Plovers on the field as well as a single Ruff. Down in the harbour there were a few other waders too.

Eastern Yellow Wagtail.

Ruddy Turnstones sticking to the shade under a tree.

Ruff.

Pacific Golden Plovers.

Wood Sandpiper.

Whimbrel.

Wryneck aside a less than exciting week

Earlier in the week my wife's job took her to the botanical gardens where she ran into a frenzy of photographers. Her phoned description of the bird's call suggested Japanese Woodpecker to me, which let's face it isn't the first name that springs to mind in connection with a frenzy but even though they aren't rare in the hills surrounding the city birds don't normally turn up in the parks.

So a couple of days later when I had some free time mid-morning I went to the botanical gardens. Not opening 9am it's often a better bet for a late start than the Imperial Palace Park which would usually be my early morning choice in the city if looking for migrants.

The weather was beautiful so the place was really busy, finding birds was slow and there would always be a someone wandering along to flush whatever might be on view. Passage migrants of interest were single Narcissus Flycatcher and Kamchatka Leaf Warbler and early winter birds included three Daurian Redstarts and the odd Pale Thrush but the first Bramblings of the season were pick of the bunch.

One of a party of about 15 Brambling.

After a couple of hours I heard a slightly distant single woodpecker call, over before I realised and not enough to determine which species it had been. Almost simultaneously a shout went up and photographers were running. The call was from the direction I'd been headed so I was witness to an amazing scene that must have prompted my wife to phone me a couple of days earlier. A crowd of photographers tail-like followed the green comet or like bees behind their queen they'd cluster under the tree in a rush and off the bird would go again. Back and forth from tree to tree, over the pond and across it again. I doubt the bird had entertainment in mind but if I'd been in charge of auditions for a latter day Keystone Cops movie those photographers would have been signed up on the spot.

Bird photographers get a bad press everywhere but I think in Japan most came to birds late without the benefit of a lifetime's experience and lacking basic fieldcraft don't realise that they're doing anything wrong and the culture being what it is no one see going to take them to task over it. I must just add that on my recent trips to Hegurajima everyone I encountered was wonderfully well mannered and behaved.

With the Japanese Woodpecker confirmed as the cause of the frenzy, I could go to work content I hadn't missed anything spectacular.

A couple of days later on Saturday morning I was working in Hirakata and took the opportunity to check the Yodo riverside in the afternoon. The large close-cut grass area is usually good for wagtails and Japanese Skylark and that day was no exception.

Japanese Skylark 

White Wagtail, the local lugens, this a presumed adult female 

Japanese Wagtail

I walked two or three kilometres up stream through a more wooded area but there there was nothing but Brown-eared Bullbuls, a few Bull-headed Shrikes and the other usual suspects in the trees while the river was equally disappointing with a handful of Eurasian Wigeon and the odd Grey Heron.

I made my way back towards the station and at the last clump of scrub before reaching the manicured grass again a Wryneck flew up from my feet and perched in the closest bush. It was too close to focus on so grabbed my camera but through the twigs I needed to switch to manual focus and by the time I fumbled with that the Wryneck had slipped into the reed beyond. I say reeds but it's an impentratable wall, the tallest are four-metre giants with a tangled mass of bindweed running through them.

A metaled track encloses this small rectangle, at one end these dense reeds which give way to thickening into scrub and finally a few stunted trees poke through at the other end. It's all over in 100 metres. And not for the first time it was the last place tried that held all the birds. Apart from the Wryneck and the typical birds of the area of course, Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Japanese White-eye and a year's supply of Bulbuls, there were a couple of Daurian Redstarts, a male Narcissus Flycatcher, a Kamchatka Leaf Warbler and one or two Pale Thrushes. The dense nature of the vegetation meant the idea of getting photographs was a joke but because birds came and went, some not to be seen again, there was a great sense of expectation that something of more interest could have been lurking in there.

A selection of peek-a-boo shots, Kamchatka Leaf at the top (really), a couple of the Narcissus, Pygmy Woodpecker (usually much easier) and a couple of White-eyes. Even the normally brazen Daurian Redstarts were skulkers.

If there was something good lurking, I never did find it.

Ogasawara ferry trip

I sailed on the Ogasawara Maru, the only transportation link between Tokyo and the Ogasawara Islands, at 10am on the 7th. The ferry departs from Takeshiba-sanbashi pier once a week, the same location as departures for Miyake and Hachijojima. The return voyage left Chichijima at 2pm on the 11th getting into Tokyo at 3:20pm the following day. Amazingly I was back in my own living room in Kyoto just three and a half hours later!

Views along the slow exit from the pier towards the open sea, about three long hours, were lost behind a curtain of drizzle much of the time and the clouds were so low that jets landing at Haneda suddenly and silently appeared over us, water streaming off their wings. Past Hanada, then the ventilation island for the Aqua-Line and down the Boso Peninsular where the first Streaked Shearwaters began to appear. Once into open water the weather began to improve slightly.

An artificial island island in the middle of Tokyo Bay providing ventilation for the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line linking Kawasaki to the base of the Boso Peninsular in Chiba. 

Further into the bay this sub heading in was something I hadn't expected. 

The first Bulwer's Petrel appeared off Oshima and there were about 18 more during the course of the afternoon. Apart from Streaked Shearwaters I saw little else just two distant possible Short-tailed Shearwaters which would have been the only ones of the trip had I confirmed them, a shark cruising by and a single flying fish. Others had more luck, there was a Black-footed Albatross and South polar Skua seen from the other side of the boat. By far the most surprising though was an unidentified immature tropicbird off Oshima. I think the real highlight was being show a fantastic shot of Mottled Petrel just off Tommakomai (Hokkaido) a week earlier!

The following morning I was up at 4am, far too early but anticipation and a wafer-thin mattress can do wonders for an early start.

In the event there was nothing until 6:45 but realistically who would risk a lie-in? Then suddenly a Bulwer's Petrel and Bannerman's Shearwater together. The Bannerman's was a lifer for me and to get it right next to a Bulwer's removed any doubt I might have had about judging distance as well as any later second thoughts that might have crept in. The two shots below with Bulwer's and Wedge-tailed Shearwater respectively may not be good enough to show any details but do give good size comparison.  

Bannerman's with Bulwer's. Not the original duo but it turned out both were sufficiently common for a repeat performance. The first time I'd been too busy taking it all in to think of using the camera.

Not just a distant Wedge-tailed, that tiny brown and white smudge in front of it really is a Bannerman's.

Twenty minutes later we were in Wedge-tailed Shearwater territory, Streaked were left behind, and at almost 7:30 the first Brown Booby pulled alongside. With the first on the scene others were bound to follow. Ships act as magnets for them, or rather the flying fish that burst from the bow wave do. All the boobies have to do is effortlessly slipstream the ship in wait then peel off in pursuit as the fish glides to what it thinks is safety. If you ask me "booby" is a totally inappropriate name.

More Brown Boobies overhauling the ship to take their place above the bridge.

 After chasing a fish they'll quicky come back up the wake to re-assume their post over or around the bridge.

Before arriving on Chichijima at 11:30 Brown Booby and Wedge-tailed Shearwater became the backdrop for just two or three other species of interest; 4-5 Brown Noddies, 4-5 Bulwer's Petrels and another small shearwater in the distance. Other birders had 4 Bonin Petrels and a Sperm Whale.

Finding good rail space wasn't always easy, this was very exceptional as most ferry trips are totally birderless.

Sailing into Omura port looks bound to end in disaster, nothing of the port can be seen from open water.

It gradually becomes apparent there's a hidden inner bay, the entrance just coming into view in the centre of this shot. 

Arriving in Chichijima harbour.

The Hahajima ferry waiting for transferring passengers as we docked.

Our ship, the Ogasawara Maru in the foreground with the much smaller Hahajima Maru behind it.

The main street of Omura, the big city of the islands.

In the other direction, this must be the suburb.

There aren't many species of bird on the island but there are several distinct sub species, perhaps most famously the nominate race of Japanese Bush Warbler but there are also Eastern Buzzards, Black Woodpigeons, Bulbuls and White-eyes.

The local toyoshimai race of Eastern Buzzard.

From above it looks much darker and the whitish ovals hardly contrasting here in the base of the outer primaries are so striking as to recall nightjar wing patches.  

The long-billed nominate diphone race of Japanese Bush Warbler.

The local squamiceps race of Brown-eared Bulbul.

Japanese White-eyes are not only abundant but in the absence of competition seem to occupy all habitats on the island.

The invasive Green Anole is responsible for several native insect extinctions on Chichijima but it has also become a favourite on the indigenous Buzzard menu. 

Also know as the American Chameleon, the Green Anole seems equally comfortable in brown.

Of course delightful as it may be, Chichijima isn't exciting enough to attract a ferry full of birders and that evening we were due to set sail on the once-a-year cruise around the Iwo Islands. I'll write up that fantastic experience as a separate post and continue here with the return journey to Tokyo as if a normal Ogasawara trip.

Conditions were duller, becoming overcast as we were leaving the islands, perhaps the influence of the huge typhoon passing through Honshu to the north. The birds were good though, Bulwer's Petrels were very common but after three hours sailing numbers had dwindled to the odd one now and then. Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were equally common at the outset but numbers didn't tail off so much. A Bannerman's Shearwater was the only other bird while passing the other islands in the group.

Bulwer's Petrel very common off Chichijima.

Wedge-tailed Shearwater very common in southern waters.

Continuing north there weren't the huge numbers of seabirds there had been further south, though I did see three more Brown Noddies, three Brown Boobies and three Bonin Petrels. On a bit of a roll with "B" species here, five out of six seen so far, but that has nothing to do with when a Sooty Tern was called I thought it was Bridled. I'd already been watching it when it was called and though Sooty would be the expected tern in these waters (I've seen many here compared to zero Bridled in the past), I'd also expect it to look very black and white in these dull conditions which it didn't so I'll have to put it down as a dark-backed tern sp.

Bonin Petrel, a straight forward ID compared to some pterodromas. 

Brown Noddy.

The final day brought dismay; the decks were closed because of "high seas". Glimpsing shearwaters through salt-smeared windows was the only option. The sea had been a bit lumpy during the night, no doubt the influence of that typhoon again, but it seemed incomprehensible that the present two-metre swell could be considered sufficiently dangerous to keep us cooped-up inside. Admittedly this is smaller vessel than the northern route ferries, with the lowest open deck much closer to the waterline but nothing more than a potential dousing with not even cold water is hardly threatening. I've been on the northern route in huge seas in the tail of a typhoon while the doors stayed open. A Yonaguni to Ishigaki sailing would've embarrassed a jet-coaster designer but there was no restriction. What was the problem here? After getting back I checked through old note books and found this comment from February 1988 "A rough crossing, people throwing-up everywhere. Access is limited to the lower deck so many birds are obscured". So, no problem in those days then.

Just before 7am the cafe area on the stern opened and at about 7:15, as we were passing Hachijojima, we were given the run of the aft half of the lower deck. With the improved viewing it was easy to see we'd passed into cooler waters as all the large shearwaters were now Streaked. A Red-tailed Tropicbird just south of Miyake was a huge surprise and a possible Wilson's Petrel seen by other birders off Miyake would also have been a good find. The only one I've ever seen in Japan was also in early July and Japanese birders seem to think white rumped petrels in this area at this time are likely to be Wilson's.

A Red-tailed Tropicbird which seemed to be going to overtake the ship but in the end cut across the wake and disappeared. 

Streaked Shearwater, the normal in-shore shearwater for most of Japan.