Mishima - here I come!

Mishima

So my favorite time of year has arrived in Jappers...with my annual pilgrimage to an offshore island only days away, my lips are slavering with the excitement of it all.

As in the previous three of the last five years, I'll be heading out to Mishima island. A 6km by 2km wide piece of rock, in the middle of the Sea of Japan, 1 hour and 20 minutes by ferry from quiet little Hagi on the Japan sea coast of Yamaguchi.






This year I am gonna rough it for the second time and camp, after an attempt last autumn, was curtailed after a few days, because out of the kindness of their hearts the people running the campsite let us stay, but refused to turn on the water for showers etc, as it wasn't peak season.

So what might we expect..well if todays little lunchtime jaunt around Hiroshima Castle is anything to go by, quite a lot. Today at the castle there were 3 male Japanese Thrush, 1 Wryneck and 1 male Siberian Rubythroat. The latter skulking and not playing ball, while the thrushes sung and fought over territory and the Wryneck showed well for a minute before being put up by someone.

Also the Hiroshima WBSJ group just returned from a weekend trip there, where the highlights were Japanese Yellow Bunting, Japanese Murrelet, Siberian Rubythroat, Silky Starling, Little Bunting and Siberian Blue Robin among others.

Last autumn I vsited at the end of September for 2 days and managed to find quite a few goodies, including 3 Japanese rarities - Northern Wheatear ( around 20 records in Japan) ,Common Swift (not officially on Japanese list yet) and Blyth's Pipit, as well as some other scarce species - Middendorf's Grasshopper Warbler, Richard's Pipit, Long-toed Stint, Red-cheeked Starling, White's Thrush, Little Bunting and the one that got away..a swiftlet sp. There were also many Hobby and Kestrel on the island, and the commonest migrants seemed to be Grey Wagtail and Stonechat.

Kestrel
Northern Wheatear
Stonechat

Sooty Flycatcher
Northern Shoveler

The previous spring saw Mark Carmody and I having what can only be described the best spring birding I have had in Japan, even outstripping my trip to Hegura in 2002. Major rarities included Black Drongo (2), Two-barred Greenish Warbler ( 3rd or 4th Japanese record- only me)Blunt-winged Warbler (first Japanese record) and Plain Martin (4th or 5th Japanese record - latter two only Mark, myself and 1 other birder) as well as a huge list of scarcities -Chinese Pond Heron, Silky Starling, Yellow-browed Warbler, Mugimaki Flycatcher, Swinhoe's Robin, Styan's Grasshopper Warbler, Jungle Nightjar, Richard's Pipit, Grey-backed Thrush, Japanese Night Heron (Mark only - I was looking the wrong direction as usual), Japanese Paradise Flycatcher, Siberian Blue Robin, Siberian Rubythroat, Hodgson's Hawk Cuckoo (heard only), Dusky Warbler (heard only), Japanese Robin (heard only), Black-faced Spoonbill (first island record), Little Bunting, Tristram's Bunting, Pintail Snipe, Dollarbird, Oriental Scops Owl (heard only) - the one that got away Lanceolated Warbler. In all we saw 120 species. A new best spring total for me.


Black Drongo

Grey-backed Thrush
Pintail Snipe

Several spring trips before that have produced some pretty nice birds too - Black-naped Oriole (1), Black-capped Kingfisher (1), Chestnut Bunting (1), Yellow-browed Bunting (6+), Purple Heron (1), Chinese Pond Heron (2), Japanese Night Heron (1),
Swinhoe's Egret (1), Short-toed Lark (1), Brown Shrike (2), Yellow-rumped Flycatcher (1), Mugimaki Flycatcher (5+).


Black-capped Kingfisher

Swinhoe's Egret and Little Egret

Purple Heron

Chinese Pond Heron

In total I have seen about 155 species on the island since my first visit in 2000.

Unfortunately past years have seen me miss many of the rarer visitors to the island - Golden Eagle, Spotted Eagle, Chiffchaff, Willow Warbler, Thick-billed Warbler, Palla's Grasshopper Warbler, Little Whimbrel, Hooded Crane, Indian Cuckoo, Pied Wheatear, Ferruginous Flycatcher among others.

This island easily rivals Heguara for variety and numbers of birds, but is far more difficult to cover, as at its highest point it is over 200m, and much of the island is still largely impenetrable scrub! There have been well over 250 species recorded on the island, and it is defintely underwatched, with very few visitors going before or after Golden Week and virtually no-one visiting in the autumn, due to the Japanese holiday system.

Still it is a great place to kick back and relax for a few days and hopefully find some good birds into the bargain.

Recent birding highlights - April 2007

Well apart from the Hoopoe, highlights were pretty few and far between until this Friday, when I managed to find a few minutes to take a look around Shukkein Garden, in downtown Hiroshima.

Apart from larger than usual numbers of Rufous Turtle Dove, there was also a small passage of Black-faced Buntings, around 4-5, a very confiding Short-tailed Bush Warbler who came within 2-3 meters of me, oblivious to me as he chomped on a caterpillar. Just as I had given up any hope of any other migrants, a beutiful male Narcissus Flctatcher appeared out of nowhere and diligently posed on a low post for a minute or so, before flitting off into the canpoy. I also managed to flush a Eurasian Sparrowhawk out of the canpoy, while the commoner birds of winter dwindle evermore - Dusky Thrush 2-3, Pale Thrush 4-5, Brown-eared Bulbul 1-2 and Olive-backed Pipit 1 accompanying freshly-fledged Long-tailed Tits.

On the way back from teaching in Yano I was lucky enough to hear and see 4-5 Japanese Waxwings on roadside wires and trees next to busy route 2 briefly before they flew off.

A trip to Minami-Iwakuni the previous weekend also found very few birds of note. a possible Pintail Snipe, 1 Marsh Sandpiper, 11 Pacific Golden Plover, 1Spotted Redshank, 3 Grey-headed Lapwing, Penduline Tit, Ruddy Crake, Stonechat and Grey-faced Bunting..as well as a nice male Rustic Bunting. News afterwards also reached me of a 'lucionensis' Brown Shrike.

Birding at the nearby Otagawa River, yielded 3 Chinese Penduline Tits, as well as at least 5 species of egret/heron in the henronry, as well as 20 odd wigeon and a couple of amorous Spotbill Ducks.

There were also penty of gulls for me to sift through, get confused over and fail to ID as usual. I will post some picsof gulls this winter in a future post.

Unfortunately rain, work commitments and some over- exhuberant soccer antics kept me from birding this weekend.

Well off to Mishima Island in the Sea of Japan from next Sunday..camping under the stars and hopefully finding some nice birds in good company is in order. I wil post a taster of what might be on offer in the next couple of days.

I'll finish with a few of some of my more than half decent pics...including some record shots of the big flock of 22 Great Knot that David Flack and I saw at the Yahatagawa 2 weeks ago.

Egret mystery- what is it?

This egret was in the Otagawa heronry on Sunday. I thought at first it was probably just an odd-looking Intermediate Egret, but something about the jizz of this bird suggests that it is something else. The problem is though it doesn't fit any of the other candidates - Great Egret, Little Egret, Cattle Egret, pale-phase Pacific Reef Egret or Chinese Egret.

Mystery Egret 1
Mystery Egret 2

Mystery Egret 3


I have also included some shots of Intermediate Egret, Great Egret and Little Egret taken at the same heronry on the same day.


Great Egret
Little Egret

Great Egrets
Intermediate Egret
Intermediate Egret

A Hoopoe in the neighbourhood

I got a call from my good friend Sumida-san about a possible Hoopoe in a small park, on the mountainside, just 5 minutes bike ride from my house..so how could i reseist an early morning visit just before work.

As I got to the park a dog fox trotted 20 meters in fromt of me crossing from the scrubby hillside and walking up the path with some kind of bird firmly clenched in its jaws.

I met the other gallant birders able to surface at the carck and we waited and waited for the Hoope to appear.

As we waited, various birds sung from the hillside, or briefly showed themselves..the buzzing cricket-like song of Short-tailed Bush Warbler could be heard close behind us, while Pale Thrush and Dusky Trhush skuluked in the undergrowth, along with Grey Bunting, Black-faced and Meadow Buntings, which from time to time briefly burst into song. Swallows swooped and dived overhead, while Blue-and White Flycatcher and Little Cuckoo called more distantly from on top of the mountain.

We continued to wait in what had been the favoured place of the Hoopoe the day before, a large area of open turf on top of the local waterworks, which was dotted with hungry Dusky Thrushes and Rufous Turtle Doves picking through the short turf for bits and bobs.

Teh montony of waiting was broken by the dog fox cantering bold as brass across the turf, putting everything up in its path.

Finally, we decided to walk dow to the bottom of the hill below the waterworks and what should fly up, but a glorious Black, White and Pink Hoopoe, that promptly disappeared behind a clump of bamboo before any of us could get decent pics.

We waited another 15 minutes, but it didn't return.

So I made my way back to the original spot, and was lucky enough to watch the Hoope fly across and finally settle and start feeding on the open turf. I called the other birders and they got some distant pics and then I had to leg it for work!

Mystery tringa or just bad photo of immature Greenshank?

I have posted these pics on other forums, but never really received satisfactory answers as to what this might be.