Birding in Japan: kingfishers

Showing posts with label kingfishers. Show all posts

Wednesday, 8 January 2025

Chishirodai Reservoir

Chishirodai Reservoir is famous for two things; one as a heronry in spring and the other as a wintering place for ducks, especially the Mandarin duck.

Mandarin ducks seem to like the very edge of the water, which means they are normally at the furthest end of the reservoir from the path. Even from the distance, the males' gorgeous plumage is very much visible👍

Other ducks are wintering here as well, such as Mallards (magamoマガモ), Shovelers (hashibirogamoハシビロガモ), Gadwalls (okayoshigamoオカヨシガモ) and Pintails (onagagamoオナガガモ), and they tend to be in the middle of the lake.

a Little egret (kosagiコサギ)

Cormorants (kawauカワウ)

Mallards, Spot-billed ducks (karugamoカルガモ), a young Black-crowned night heron (goisagiゴイサギ) and a Kingfisher (kawasemiカワセミ)

A Black kite (tobiトビ) flew high over the reservoir, which was nice, adding more variety of birds to my sighting list😍

I will come back next month to see if early breeding birds like Grey herons have started to refurbish their old nest/build a new nest.

Tuesday, 7 January 2025

Sakazuki-gawa

There are some good places for birding locally but just we haven't managed to go round as much as we'd love to and one of them is here by the Sakazuki.

nice day! (but chilly!)

Over the reedbeds on one side of the bank, a Grey heron (Aosagiアオサギ) was showing his back to me as if he was sulking😁

A Bull-headed shrike (Mozuモズ) was blended in the background, looking for his prey.

A huge mixed flock was passing through the reeds.

Japanese tits, Long-tailed tits, Japanese white-eyes, Japanese pygmy woodpeckers were seen and I even heard calls of a Ruddy-breasted crake! Unfortunately, there's no pic of them.

All of a sudden, each little bird gave a harsh alarm call and everything went dead quiet,

because of this.

From the size and the surrounding environment, my guess is that it was a female sparrowhawk or a goshawk.

It circled over the woodlands by the river, and flew away very quickly and quietly.

A Common kingfisher (kawasemiカワセミ)

and a Japanese wagtail (Segurosekireiセグロセキレイ) turned up by the water.

I should come back and walk a bit longer on the path next time👍

Tuesday, 1 October 2024

Birding in Taiwan 2024 - I

We're back in Taiwan!!

It's for the first time since 2015 and we took the THSR (Taiwan High Speed Rail) from Taoyuan to Taichung to be picked up by our friend & bird-guide, Ko-san.

It took only half an hour from the airport to Taichung and the train ride was really comfortable👍

We headed for Guguan 谷關, a famous hot spring town at about 700-1000m above sea level, to stay the night and do some morning birding next day.

It was a pleasant morning in Guguan in spite of the terrible thunderstorm the previous evening.

Black-crowned night herons (goisagiゴイサギ) were everywhere along with some Little egrets (kosagiコサギ).

Brown dippers (kawagarasuカワガラス) were foraging.

Grey wagtails (kisekireiキセキレイ) and Common kingfishers (kawasemiカワセミ) were seen well too.

A female Plumbeous redstart (kawabitakiカワビタキ) was sitting on the rock but didn't move much...

In the trees on the other side of the river, we spotted a Crested goshawk (kammuri-ootakaカンムリオオタカ) and a Crested serpent eagle (Kammuri-washiカンムリワシ, both of which were a bit too far for clear pictures..

We managed to see/hear quite a few species by the river even before breakfast.

Thursday, 19 September 2024

Ecology Park (I'm back!)

It's September, it's in the middle of September, and yet it is incredibly HOT and HUMID in Chiba.

I'm back to Chiba and have been trying back to bird-watching life.

To start with, I went back to the Ecology Park in Aoba no Mori Koen, Chiba.

very calm and peaceful🌳

A juvenile Kingfisher (Kawasemiカワセミ) appeared from nowhere and perched on the pole😍

6 Spotbilled Ducks (Karugamoカルガモ) were foraging on water.

a graceful Great White Egret (Daisagiダイサギ)

had a private matter... sorry! 😄

moss growing on a wooden bridge

A Chinaberry (Sendanセンダン) tree laden with fruits

An one-hour walk was very satisfying, although there weren't many bird species to see.

Probably the weather will change in a week or so (I do hope so!), then some wintering birds will have arrived.

Saturday, 10 December 2016

Sonnoh-no-Mori Koen

I have been back to Sonnoh-no-Mori Koen to see if there would be more wintering birds in the woods.

a family of Azure-winged Magpie (Onagaオナガ) were having a feast on wild-rose berries

Why aren't you joining your friends?

Two Little Egret (Kosagiコサギ) were keeping a distance from each other

A female Bull-headed Shrike (Mozuモズ) just chased away a Dusky Thrush (Tsugumiツグミ)

Two Kingfisher (Kawasemiカワセミ) were chasing each other persistently and neither seemed to give up. (thankfully, for the observers, there were a lot of opportunities to see them back and forth along the stream)

It was so windy it was quite difficult to spot small birds in the woods, but this Varied Tit (Yamagaraヤマガラ) made a loud call. Gotcha!!

He popped out from the bush by the footpath when I was about to leave.
Japanese Bush Warbler (Uguisuウグイス) are one of the commonest birds in Chiba, yet one of the hardest to see!