Most of my trips to Hokkaido are in winter when snow can make getting into Black Woodpecker and Hazel Grouse habitat more challenging. Plus to be honest, fantastic as these two are, there are more compelling reasons to be on the coast; woodland birding takes a back seat. When I go up there in summer I tend to have a specific target in mind or the place is no more than the turn round point for seabirding from the ferry. Either way, most trips don't afford the opportunity of seeing these two birds but in May this year I was able to get excellent views of both.
The first, utterly unforgetable, Hazel Grouse I ever saw was in South Korea. I just couldn't see the small bird making that call, bending this way and that to peer through the foliage I suddenly saw the culprit, a Hazel Grouse not 10 metres from me. I was so shocked, it's one of those birding memories that stay with you.
Black Woodpeckers are fantastic birds too but usually all I'll have to show for my attempts to photograph them will be a tail disappearing out of the frame or a shadowy motion blur zipping through a gap in the trees. Thus this trip was very satisfying, my best views ever.
I mentioned compelling reasons to be on the coast in winter and for most people the Sea Eagles are one such reason. I suppose I'm spoilt in that we have a local over-wintering Steller's in Kansai, but White-tailed is harder to come by down here, and of course it's the archetypal
Haliaeetus from a European birders perspective. Seeing them inland in summer is still very special for me and a noisy adult seeing-off an immature in central Hokkaido one evening raised a smile.
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| Right overhead calling, not the youngest judging by the head and breast colouration. |
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| It was determined to make its point, this lake and surrounding forest is taken. |
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| It sat there well into dusk, certainly till after the first Eurasian Woodcocks were roding. |
Oriental Cuckoo is common enough in the Kansai mountains but, a bit like our woodpeckers, they are far less easy to see well compared to their Hokkaido counterparts. Or that's how I always feel.
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| Oriental Cuckoo was common, the only Common Cuckoo was sitting on wires in the middle of a village. |
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| Hardly a Hokkaido speciality but it was easier to photograph than the Grey Buntings we were after. |
