Tits in Tokyo

 

As I mentioned in my previous post, I found out in May that I was being relocated back to the United States, sadly without Nikki in tow (yet). This was of course bittersweet, but in some ways I was still excited to be outside of Asia for the first time since 2021. There are no direct flights from the Philippines to the US, especially not to the East Coast, which meant that at least I had the chance to have a layover somewhere interesting. This time it turned out to be Japan, the usual transit hub for United Airlines. I was able to finagle it so that the layover lasted 18 hours, meaning an overnight stay in Tokyo and a chance to spend a morning exploring the city before heading to the airport. 

This was to be my first visit to Japan, so I spent what time I could in the weeks before researching places to stay in Tokyo and where to visit on my one morning. My very good friends who lived in the city were out of town on the day I was going to be there, and it's a spot Nikki and I have wanted to visit for years for non-bird reasons, so I figured that was a good enough excuse to just focus on birding while I was there, figuring I would get a good taste of Tokyo along the way. Late May is pretty solidly summertime in Tokyo, which meant that the migratory birds were mostly gone and my potential for lifers was limited. Still, there were a number of good birds that were around, and I was able to get lots of good advice from other birders on Facebook in order to put together a reasonable schedule.

I bid a tearful goodbye to Nikki in Manila the afternoon of May 20, and arrived at Haneda Airport in the evening, with time for little else but to head to my hotel and get some sleep. My first impression of Japan was how ridiculously efficient everything was: I sailed through immigration in about 5 minutes, and from there it was less than 15 minutes before I'd purchased bus tickets and was on the bus heading to my hotel. Having just come from NAIA, where they don't even believe that public transportation should connect to the airport, it was a depressing comparison to say the least. 

I arrived at my hotel in the fashionable Tachikawa district late in the evening, and got a few hours of sleep before waking up before sunrise to do some exploring. Tokyo has annoyingly early sunrises in the summer months, so that meant waking up at 4AM and walking down to the metro station for the first train of the day. The Tokyo metro has a very good reputation so I expected it to be nice and user-friendly. It was with great annoyance, then, that I got there and found out that the only way to purchase a ticket was with cash, which of course I did not have. There were ATMs right next to the ticket machine, but they did not take foreign cards. Ultimately I had to waste precious birding time walking to the nearest 7-Eleven to withdraw Yen so that I could buy a ticket. 

Tachikawa before dawn

Finally, I got on the second train of the day about a half hour after sunrise to do some birding. My destination was Takao-san, or Mount Takao, a mountain (really a glorified hill) on the western edge of Tokyo that has some of the most accessible hiking trails and good-quality forest in the city. It was early on a Sunday so there were very few people with me on the train- a few people heading to work, some bleary-eyed teens heading back from a party, and a couple of middle school boys on their way to baseball practice. Tokyo west of Tachikawa isn't exactly the bustling metropolis people associate with the city, but it was my first proper look at the city, so I enjoyed it even it it was mostly suburbs, offices, and light industry. I also got my first few lifers of the day from the train, in the form of Carrion Crows, Brown-eared Bulbuls, and White-cheeked Starlings, all some of the usual Tokyo trash birds. 

I got off the metro at the Takao station, and walked the rest of the way from there to the foot of Takao-san. The route took me through a quiet residential neighborhood, full of small shrines and well-manicured gardens. Despite studying Japanese for several years and having a general interest in the history and geography of the country I've never been much of a weeb. Walking through Tokyo I have to admit though... they might have a point. I found the neighborhood subtly beautiful in a way that I've never really seen anywhere else. I suppose it did help that I was there early in the morning, so there was barely anyone about besides me and the birds.

Scenes from my walk through the Takao neighborhood

One of the joys of being in a new country is that practically every bird around is new and exciting, at least at first. I heard a singing bird in the top of a tree that I soon identified as Varied Tit, one of my most-wanted lifers from Japan, and was eventually able get good looks at it- certainly one of the best-looking tits anywhere in the world. A Blue Rock Thrush perched on a fence was a welcome burst of color, and even the Eurasian Tree Sparrows hopping about were more exciting given it's their native range. Walking along a rushing stream I heard a melodious song from the bushes and saw it was a Chinese Hwamei, part of a feral population derived from escaped caged birds, but still a great-looking bird. 

Varied Tit

Blue Rock Thrush

Eurasian Tree Sparrow

I arrived at the bottom of Takao-san about 6 in the morning, but realized I actually had no idea where the trail started. I spent a bit wandering around and getting lost, almost stumbling into an Onsen, before I realized that the entrance was further down the road than I thought. This proved to be a fortuitous mistake, however, as it meant that I happened upon an adorable group of Long-tailed Tits, another one of my most-wanted targets. I got to watch them as they did their thing in a little cherry tree, joined by Japanese White-Eyes and Japanese Tits. A small group of pigeons flew over, which I realized were actually White-bellied Green Pigeons, a long-shot target of mine. It wasn't the best of views, but most people only hear them this time of year so it was a nice surprise. There were also lots of Asian House Martins flying around- as it turned out they were nesting under a bridge and feeding their nearly-fledged babies. Even Brown-eared Bulbuls were nice to see- certainly much better-looking than most bulbuls in their genus.

Long-tailed Tit

White-bellied Green Pigeons

Asian House Martin

Brown-eared Bulbul

The garden at the trailhead

I finally found the proper trailhead for Takao-san and started hiking up. I followed the advice of a useful website on Tokyo birding and took the #6 trail upwards, as that was supposedly the less-crowded one. Unfortunately, everyone else in Tokyo seemed to think the same thing, as it quickly got crowded with hikers as the morning went on. Everyone was very polite and respectful, and it was kind of nice to see such an age range of hikers, from young kids to grandparents, all dressed in proper hiking attire. I remember at least enough Japanese to say ohayō gozaimasu and to explain to those who asked that I was looking for birds, but ultimately it got so crowded that it was difficult to stop and look for birds. 

Crowds aside, it was a lovely trail, winding its way uphill through moist evergreen forest filled with Japanese Cedars and Japanese Maples, interspersed with little shrines and waterfalls. Further upwards the cedars in the valley were covered in epiphytic Japanese Stone Orchids, making it look even more ethereal. It's probably a little orientalist to say that it felt like I was in a Studio Ghibli movie but, well, it kind of did. As is so often the case, there were actually far fewer birds inside the forest than there were on the forest edge, but there were still a few: Japanese Bush Warblers trilling from deep inside the thickets, and little flocks of Japanese White-Eyes high above me. The highlight was a singing Japanese Thrush right next to the trail, a lifer I hadn't expected to see this trip. 

Japanese Thrush

Diekeana admirabilis

Japanese Stone Orchid (Dendrobium monoliforme)

Fringed Iris

Scenes from the Takao-San trail

These little statues are ojizō-sama, believed to be the guardians of lost children

Unfortunately it was already mid-morning by the time I started hiking the trail, so I didn't make it all the way up to the top of Takao-san before I had to turn around so that I'd have time to make it to my other destination. It was even more crowded on the way down, but I did get to add Asian Brown Flycatcher to my Japan list, and I saw a nice singing Japanese Tit, the third tit of the day and the only one that wasn't a lifer. At the trailhead I saw a singing male Blue-and-white Flycatcher, and had a flyby from a spectacular male Japanese Paradise-Flycatcher. 

Asian Brown Flycatcher

Japanese Tit

Blue-and-white Flycatcher

Hemipyxis plagioderoides

Mnais pruinosa

Lemyra imparilis

Hirsute Raspberry (Rubus hirsutus)

Even the dogs on Takao-San were dressed appropriately for hiking

Down at the bottom, I got back on the metro and headed toward my next destination. After some minor confusion figuring out how to transfer between lines (I'm admittedly not really a city person), I arrived at the edge of the Tama River, one of the many rivers winding through Tokyo. The Tama-gawa used to be a menace to Tokyo as it constantly flooded and caused major damage to buildings and industry, but these days levees have been built along most of its length and the flooding instead just creates hundreds of gravelly islands in the center of the river. These islands are covered in little meadows that are home to lots of wildlife, including some that would be lifers for me. 

The Tama River at Seisekisakuragaoka

As I arrived at the river, a horrid squawking sound alerted me to the first of those lifers: a Green Pheasant foraging in a little clearing next to the river. These were recently split from Common Pheasant, and are the most common of Japan's endemic chickens. Soon after I heard the much pleasanter song of a Meadow Bunting, my second lifer at the site and very nice-looking, even if it was far away from me in the middle of the river. There was also a Zitting Cisticola foraging for nesting material in the flowering meadow below me, and an Eastern Spot-billed Duck hanging out in the river. I got much better looks at Carrion Crows and White-cheeked Starlings, and Black Kite and Osprey were nice additions to my Japan list. A shorebird flyover over got my hopes up for Long-billed Plover, which would be another lifer for me, but it was just a Little Ringed Plover. I also dipped on Japanese Wagtail, which is supposedly quite easy, but I expect I'll be able to see that on my next visit.

Green Pheasant

Meadow Bunting

Zitting Cisticola

Eastern Spot-billed Duck

Carrion Crow

Black Kite

White-cheeked Starling

Lance-leaved Coreopsis

Long-headed Poppy

Sadly, by then it was almost noon and I needed to hightail it to the airport to catch my flight. I enjoyed the walk back to the metro through another pleasant neighborhood, then rushed to my hotel to pack up and go to the airport. Thankfully there was a bus from my hotel directly to Haneda, so I had time to get lunch with a good friend from Tokyo at the airport before getting on my plane to the US. My visit to Tokyo was all too brief, but it was still enough to see why so many people enjoy Japan. I'll need to go back for a much longer time to get a better feel for the country (and in fact I'm already planning a return visit later this year...), but it was a great excuse to get out and see a new place before going back to the US.