Ishikawa October 6 Dark-sided Flycatchers

It feels a bit odd posting in reverse chronological order but on my way north to Hegurajima last week I stopped off at Kenmin Kaihin Park in Ishikawa. The same place I already posted Lesser Cuckoo shots from on the return southward drive.

On the way up muscicapa flycatchers were better represented with at least 15 Asian Brown, a Grey-streaked and 2-3 Dark-sided. I was particularly pleased with the latter as they are surprisingly uncommon, bordering on rare, in the Kyoto area. To see fewer Grey-streaked than Dark-sided was a novelty.

Asian Brown is the only one of the trio that breeds locally and it isn't difficult to get reasonable shots of them from spring onwards but I'll post a few of the better images anyway to contrast with the Dark-sided.

Of course I was far more interested in getting shots of the Dark-sided, this may well be the first opportunity I've had in fact.

Unfortunately I couldn't get any shots of the thrushes, an altogether trickier proposition but I did get good views of Japanese, Brown-headed and Pale rather than the usual tail disappearing through the foliage. Equally disappointing was a juvenile Goshawk, presumably a female going by its enormous size, which didn't sit still long enough for me to get the camera on it. My first reaction is still to go for the bins first.

The only other bird I was tempted by was an obliging Japanese Wagtail.

Once at Wajima waiting for the ferry the following morning I had quite good comparative views of paler and darker 1CY Slaty-backed Gulls. The Black Kites were as photogenic as usual.

Species in or near the park:-
Green Pheasant   1
Mandarin Duck   9
Eastern Spot-billed Duck   9
Eurasian Wigeon   3
Mallard   1
Northern Pintail   c100
Common Pochard   1
Tufted Duck   3
Great Crested Grebe   2
Grey Heron   2
Great White Egret   c20
Little Egret   c15
Great Cormorant   1
Eurasian Kestrel   2
Osprey   2
Oriental Honey Buzzard   1
Black Kite   c15
Northern Goshawk   1
Common Coot   2
Black-tailed Gull   c20
Vega Gull   5
Black-headed Gull   several
Rock Dove   c30
Oriental turtle Dove   c15
Lesser Cuckoo   1
Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker   c8
Great Spotted Woodpecker   1 heard
Bull-headed Shrike   12
Carrion Crow
Large-billed Crow
Great Tit   common
Varied Tit   1
Sand Martin   c50
Long-tailed Tit   several parties
Skylark   3
Brown-eared Bulbul   common
Kamchatka Leaf Warbler   common
Japanese White-eye   several
Chestnut-eared Starling   1
White-cheeked Starling   c20
Japanese Thrush   2
Pale Thrush   1
Brown-headed Thrush   1
Blue Rock Thrush   3
Grey-streaked Flycatcher   1
Asian Brown Flycatcher   15
Dark-sided Flycatcher   2-3
Narcissus Flycatcher   1 heard
Blue and White Flycatcher   4
Eurasian Tree Sparrow   3-4
Grey Wagtail   1
White Wagtail   c10
Japanese Wagtail   2
Oriental Greenfinch   fairly common
Eurasian Siskin   5 plus a flock heard
Hawfinch   c25
Meadow Bunting   2 heard

Hegurajima October 7

Heading out to Hegura, even for just a day trip when the weather is far from perfect in birding terms, is always exciting. Whatever the weather something could turn up or a earlier arrival still be lingering. Of course a day trip means getting there at 10:30 and catching the 3pm boat back. It doesn't allow enough time to even cover the whole island, small as it is, let alone spend sufficient time in each area to find the more secretive species. So it proved this time but even some of the easily found birds were pretty good.

When I'm staying on the island I always make a beeline for the accommodation, get rid of my bag and into the field as quickly as possible. Whereas on day trips my first port of call is no further than the scrap of scrub in the harbour. This tiny area never seems to disappoint and I wonder how many good birds I've missed over the years hurrying by on the way to dump my stuff. To call this 30m x 30m nugget of knee-high vegetation even a scrap of scrub seems rather grand, it may be a universe to an arch-skulker but to most birds, even with the small seamless blob of central bushes (probably no more than three or four), there aren't many places to hide!

On this occasion I glimpsed the distinctive tail pattern of a Taiga/Red-breasted Flycatcher dive into the clump of bushes. I managed to get a brief view as it perched in the penumbra before vanishing stubbornly into the interior. But as I was leaving the island there it was again, this time perched right out in the open on the wooden fence charged with holding back this mini-jungle. Thus it provided an excellent introduction and conclusion to this all-to-short visit - even though I wasn't left with enough time to try to get any half decent shots of it.

With more time and a few mealworms that the photographers usually come armed with, I'm sure this bird would have proved very cooperative.

100 metres further on, in the less often cut strip of grass and weeds along the edge of what used to be the school playing field (it still is I suppose, it's just no longer a school with any pupils) a Middendorff's Warbler popped up and whirred the slow-motion locustella whir into the hedge. How do they migrate thousands of kilometres when reaching the nearest cover looks as much as they can manage? Then a couple of minutes later I was looking at a Yellow-browed Bunting. Yellow-browed is a more frequent spring migrant and as I usually visit other islands in spring this was both a Hegura and autumn tick for me. And very nice too!

Kamchatka Leaf Warblers were common on the island but the only other phylloscs I had were three Yellow-browed Warblers and one Sakhalin Leaf Warbler heard only.

I don't think I've ever been to Hegura in October without seeing Pine Bunting. Sometimes small flocks of them, yet I've never seen one anywhere else in Japan except once for a rather dashing wintering male in Hokkaido. It's not as though they're either skulking or difficult to identify and I find it odd that I don't see more given they're so regular here.

Pine Bunting in the harbour, a farewell bonus before jumping on the ferry.

The "midday shift" allowed by the ferry schedule isn't necessarily the most productive and considering I had a two-hour lull during which I found very little I had no complaints about the trip. This is the list of species recorded:-

Mandarin Duck   8
Streaked Shearwater   common from the ferry
Grey Heron   1
Black Kite   1
Black-tailed Gull   common
Slaty-backed Gull   c10 in Wajima harbour
Black Woodpigeon   2
Oriental Turtle Dove   several
Great Tit   2-3
Coal Tit   1
Barn Swallow   1 the only Barn during the four-day trip to Ishikawa
Skylark   5
Brown-eared Bulbul   a few
Japanese Bush Warbler   c12 heard
Asian Stubtail   1
Middendorff's Warbler   1
Yellow-browed Warbler   3
Kamchatka Leaf Warbler   common
Sakhalin Leaf Warbler   1 heard
Japanese White-eye   fairly common
Dusky Thrush   2
thrush sp   2-3
Blue Rock Thrush   2-3
Asian Brown Flycatcher   1
Taiga Flycatcher   1
White Wagtail   2
Red-throated Pipit   1
Brambling   c20
Oriental Greenfinch   several
Pine Bunting   1
Yellow-browed Bunting   1
Black-faced Bunting   several

Kanazawa October 9

In the field at last! I just had a four-day trip to Ishikawa and starting with the final day, when I actually had a Japan tick, I'll quickly run through some of the highlights.

Yesterday's undoubted star bird was an Arctic Warbler; new in Japan for me. I was standing at the beginning of one of the paths through the park waiting for light to broaden sufficiently to start birding when the bird started calling about 30 metres away. An obvious case of when you see (or in this case hear) the real deal there's no doubt. All the previous possibles pale compared to how distinctive (relatively speaking) the actual bird is.

It called for about 30 seconds and towards the end of the sequence of calls two much closer Kamchatka Leaf Warblers started calling too. Fortunately I'd heard dozens of Kamchatka during the three previous days so my ear was well and truly in. After all fell silent again I played Arctic call on my iphone which drew an instant response from the bird in question, though the two Kamchatkas remained silent. The calling Arctic popped up into a taller bush giving brief views. The big disappointment was that at 30 metres in still dull light I couldn't make out any plumage features that might suggest I'd ever be able to recognise a silent bird should should I find one. After it dropped down I neither heard nor saw it again. But what a start to the day!

The only other good warbler of the day was a Radde's, again located by call, and despite giving numerous glimpses at down to two metres never came into the open except to flit from one tangled mass of low bushes to the next.

One species that was more cooperative in photographic terms was Lesser Cuckoo. There were at least two birds in the same small area as I'd seen one bird three days earlier. The first was a juvenile, the other a bit of a puzzle but presumably an advanced moult juvenile.

Juvenile Lesser Cuckoo, I'm not certain these shots are of the same bird.

When I first saw the other fly by I thought it was an adult but on seeing perched was left thinking it is a juvenile with advanced moult. I believe a 2CY bird would be indistinguishable from adult after have moulted in summer but stand to be corrected.

Going by this view I'd be fully expecting this to be an adult Lesser Cuckoo - at least in field conditions.

It turned out to be an interesting combination of greys and browns.

 

Presumed early moulting juvenile Lesser Cuckoo.

There were two female-type Blue and White Flycatchers coming down to bathe in a stream. These shots show a surprisingly greenish bird compared the normal brown appearance. I'm used to seeing fresh Narcissus looking very greenish and Blue and White do too but I've never noticed one quite as green looking as this. Perhaps the unusual angle of view makes the difference, looking down on the bird rather than upwards against the light.

A distinctly greenish female Blue and White Flycatcher. I'm not sure whether the whitish fringes to the inner webs of the tertials are an artifact or feature, the bird perched up for a couple of seconds before seeing me and dashing off into the woodland.

More expected here are Green Pheasant, they are quite common and not at all shy. Nevertheless these birds didn't come out into the open until 9am which was a little surprising.

On the non-bird front these crabs are common in wooded areas.

A common species here, this one was walking up the stone steps.