Tokyo Sunrise

 

After returning from my trip to the Philippines last November I thought that that was the end of my work travel, at least for a few months. That was just fine with me, since two back-to-back cross-Pacific Ocean missions left me with a mountain of work to attend to, a befuddled internal clock, and a wife who was very much looking forward to not having to look after a dog on her own. 

We did indeed enjoy a nice, chill December of not going anywhere farther away than Kenilworth Park (I'll get around to writing a blog post about chill winter birding at some point). I expected that to continue for a couple of months, but just as I was about to go on holidays I received a request from work colleagues to help with a workshop that was going to be held in Tokyo of all places. I had a separate project in Indonesia that needed attending to around the same time, so with relatively little warning I was preparing for yet another work trip back to Asia. 

I arrived in Tokyo the evening of January 25 after an excruciatingly long straight-shot flight from DC. The workshop was starting the next day so I had little time to rest. Thankfully(?) the long flight and jet lag were working in my favor and I was up by 5AM the morning of the 27th. It being winter time, the sun didn't rise until 7, but that still gave me an hour or so to explore the neighborhood around my hotel and look for birds. As it happens, my employer's Japan office is located right next to Hibiya Park in the Chiyoda ward of central Tokyo, an area I hadn't visited on my two previous visits to the country. Hibiya Park became my morning destination for the whole week that I spent there, and it was a great spot to see some of the common winter birds, including a few that were new for me. 

My first morning walk around Hibiya Park was a chance to reconnect with birds I hadn't seen in years, some of which I was used to in the Philippines and some of which I'd only seen before in Japan. The usual trash birds like White Wagtails, Asian Tits, Warbling White-eyes, White-cheeked Starlings, Large-billed Crows, Brown-eared Bulbuls, and about a thousand Rock Pigeons. I was happy to run into a beautiful Dusky Thrush hanging out by the side of one of the ponds, and there was a Japanese Bush Warbler skulking around in some bushes that I managed to get a picture of for the first time. The first morning was the coldest one of the week, and one of the ponds in Hibiya Park was frozen in the morning while the other was home to a few Eastern Spot-billed Ducks and many bathing bulbuls. 

Dusky Thrush

White Wagtail

Eastern Spot-billed Duck

Japanese Bush Warbler

Large-billed Crow (a proper one, not the Philippine Jungle Crows it used to be lumped with)

Asian Tit used to be called Japanese Tit before being unceremoniously lumped with Cinereous Tit

Warbling White-Eye used to be called Japanese White-Eye before being lumped with Mountain White-Eye in Southeast Asia, a decision I'm definitely not on board with

I found out the hard way that one of the paths in the park is the domain of the local pigeons and was immediately mobbed when I walked down it

The pond in Hibiya Park

Tuesday morning the workshop started later than other days, and I made use of my extra half hour to walk through Hibiya Park and onward to the Imperial Palace. The Emperor of Japan was reduced to a ceremonial role in the 1940s for *ahem* reasons, but he still gets a big fancy palace that's mostly closed off to visitors. The outer parts of the palace are still accessible to the public, and of most interest to me was the palace moat which was full of wintering ducks and waterfowl. The most common species was also the most exciting for me: Falcated Ducks, an absolutely beautiful duck that was a lifer for me as it almost never makes it north to the Philippines. There were easily over 100 of them in the palace moat, along with nearly as many Gadwalls, Eurasian Coots, and Northern Shovelers and a healthy smattering of other waterfowl like Eastern Spot-billed Ducks, Little Grebes, Tufted Ducks, and Great Cormorants. The palace itself was also gorgeous, and I wish I'd had the chance to do a proper tour of the grounds. 

Falcated Duck, just a stupidly good-looking bird

Always fun to see common American birds in other places, like these Gadwalls

In eastern North America Great Cormorants are found only on rocky coastlines while Double-crested Cormorants are trash birds in inland waterways. In Japan it's Japanese Cormorants that are only on rocky coastlines and Great Cormorants that are the inland trash birds, which makes me wonder if the taxonomy has been fully thought through

Speaking of weird taxonomy things, Eastern Spot-billed Ducks are apparently Mallards' closest relatives rather than American Black Duck or Mexican Duck which to me look way more similar.

I wish White Wagtails were more common in the Philippines because they're smart-looking little birds

Large-billed Crows in Tokyo are famous for dropping nuts onto streets and waiting for cars to crush them. This particular individual was satisfied with just eating someone's discarded rice.

A 200-year-old palace moat next to skyscrapers–classic Japan

The outer parts of the Imperial Palace

Wednesday was a much busier day work-wise, and I only had time for a quick afternoon walk in Hibiya Park with only my binoculars. That of course was when a winter migrant Brambling (a new Tokyo bird for me) decided to show up. That night we visited TeamLab Planets, a modern interactive art museum in an industrial part of the city. That has nothing to do with birds or nature, I just wanted to mention it to say that I highly recommend that anyone visiting Tokyo add it to their itinerary, especially those going with kids. 

Thursday was the last day of the workshop, and I took one last sunrise walk through Hibiya Park. In addition to the usual birds I added a few very nice birds to my year list, including a flock of adorable Long-tailed Tits, a migratory Pale Thrush (a bird I hadn't seen since Shanghai in 2018), and a beautiful little Common Kingfisher. At the palace moat there were the usual ducks and coots, along with a Black-headed Gull that made a brief fly-by. I also had fun watching the Large-billed Crows, which are common birds but incredibly full of personality. As with all crows what they lack in gaudy colors they more than make up for in terms of fun behavior. 

I generally only take selfies under duress, or if there's a bird in the background

I like to think this guy is just catching up with his crow friend

Large-billed Crow

Long-tailed Tits have to be somewhere in the top 1% of cute bird rankings

Really difficult to not call Warbling White-eyes Japanese White-eyes, especially in Japan...

Common Kingfisher, the target of the bird photographers I saw stalking around the ponds every morning

Pale Thrush

Merlin describes White-cheeked Starling as "rather grimy-looking", which is harsh but accurate

Black-headed Gull

Brown-eared Bulbuls aren't bad-looking as bulbuls go, but they're so noisy and ubiquitous that they quickly become one of the more annoying birds in Japan

Great Cormorant

The crane fountain at Hibiya Park

It was only barely above freezing during my visit, but that didn't stop the apricot trees in the park from flowering already

The workshop finished on Thursday evening, which meant that I unexpectedly had all of Friday off. I was meeting my friend Mika in the afternoon so I decided to spend the morning birding within Tokyo rather than going outside the city. After perusing some eBird lists I decided to head to Kasai Rinkai Park on the edge of Tokyo Bay. I'd been there on my last visit to Tokyo and enjoyed it, and there were a number of rare birds that had been reported from the park that week, all of which would be lifers for me. 

The park was an easy 30-minute metro ride from my hotel (I really can't say enough good things about the Tokyo Metro, and how nice it is to have everything so easily accessible by public transport). There were a number of other local birders who arrived at the park around the same time, but as seems to be the norm for Japan birding they barely acknowledge me or each other. I understand wanting birding to be a solitary habit, but I have to say that birding in Japan always makes me miss the instant camaraderie that manifests almost anytime I meet another birder in the US or the Philippines. It also makes it much easier to find rare birds in an area you're unfamiliar with...

I made my way quickly through the forest trails toward the coast. The forest was quiet, with mostly just the usual Brown-eared Bulbuls and Warbling White-eyes as well as many Black Kites soaring overhead. The Kamino-ike Pond next to the Bird Watching Center held a nice collection of ducks including the usual Gadwalls, Northern Shovelers, Tufted Ducks, and Eastern Spot-billed Ducks as well as a few species I hadn't seen further inland like Mallards, Eurasian Teals, and Common Pochards (a Japan lifer for me). In the channel between the coast and the artificial offshore islands was a raft of Eurasian Wigeons and lots of Great Crested Grebes. I was happy to add Red-breasted Merganser and Black-necked Grebe to my Japan list–birds I'm familiar with in the US but had never seen in Asia. There weren't as many gulls around as I'd hoped (or feared), but I did get a flyby from a single Vega Gull, now split from American Herring Gull.

Brown-eared Bulbul being its usual annoying self

Eurasian Teals not deigning to pose properly

Red-breasted Merganser

Great Crested Grebe

Vega Gull, since we're apparently still pretending there are more than 2 or 3 species of Larus gulls

I walked along the edge of the channel to where a bridge led to Nishi-Nagisa, the western of the two little artificial islands off the shore. There were a few cute Daurian Redstarts hanging around in the bushes next to the channel, and a few Black Kites were soaring overhead. A bonus feature of Kasai Rinkai Kouen is that it allows great looks at Mount Fuji on a clear day, and this time it was out in all its glory, hulking over the Tokyo skyline to the southwest. 

Daurian Redstart

Black Kite

Kasai Rinkai Kouen with Mount Fuji in the distance

富士山 (Mount Fuji) with a トビ (Black Kite)

As I crossed the bridge to Nishi-Nagisa, huge flocks of Great Cormorants flew overhead to their daytime roost on Higashi-Nagisa, the eastern of the two artificial islands. Higashi-Nagisa is a wildlife sanctuary with no public access, and is home to decent numbers of migratory water birds even in the winter time. Unfortunately it's almost impossible to see the main tidal flats where the birds hang out, and I had to walk all the way to the end of the pier on Nishi-Nagisa and squint through my camera to try and ID the little bird-shaped specks through the heat haze. One of those bird-shaped specks turned out to be a Common Shelduck, a vagrant individual that had been hanging out at the park for the past week that I'd been hoping to run into. That was my second lifer of the trip, and it was closely followed by the third: a few Saunders's Gulls, another uncommon winter visitor to Tokyo. Near the Shelduck were a number of Slaty-backed Gulls and some shorebirds, of which I could only ID Dunlins and Kentish Plovers at that distance without a scope. Off shore were huge rafts of Greater Scaup and Great Crested Grebes while there was a Black-necked Grebe closer in. Walking back over the bridge a flock of Eurasian Wigeons flew past. Overall it was a fun mix of birds I'm familiar with from the US and birds I hadn't seen since the last time I was in Asia. 

Great Cormorant

Common Shelduck (left) with Slaty-backed Gulls 

Saunders's Gull

Black-necked Grebe

Eurasian Wigeon

Back on the mainland, there were a few raptors thermalling, including Black Kites, an Eastern Buzzard, and a couple of Eurasian Sparrowhawks, my third lifer of the day. By the wild bird center there was a nice Bull-headed Shrike and a little group of buntings hanging around in the undergrowth, including lots of Masked Buntings and a single Meadow Bunting. While New World Sparrows are named for Old World Sparrows (despite not being all that closely related), really they're more like Old World Buntings in terms of their behavior and ecological niche. 

Eurasian Sparrowhawk pretending to be a Eurasian Goshawk

Bull-headed Shrike

Masked Bunting

I started walking back toward the metro as I had to make it back to the city for a lunch appointment, although I did stop for a beautiful Oriental Turtledove and a family group of Azure-winged Magpies hanging out next to the trail. Along the way I encountered the first friendly birder I'd ever run into in Japan: an extremely talkative grandpa who got off his bicycle to walk next to me and chat away animatedly while scrolling through his phone to show off his bird pictures. My Japanese was only good enough to say things along the lines of "wow, great" and "cool!", but he didn't seem to mind. He eventually rode off, only to return a few minutes later to tell me that there was a rare bird up ahead that I had to come and see. I hurried along behind him and found a big group of photographers clustered along a rather drab-looking Red-breasted Flycatcher, another very uncommon migrant that was my fourth lifer of the day. I thanked him, took a few pictures, and headed out toward the metro. As I walked out of the park a pair of Large-billed Crows flew overhead angrily mobbing an Eastern Buzzard. 

Oriental Turtledove

Azure-winged Magpie

Red-breasted Flycatcher

Large-billed Crow chasing an Eastern Buzzard

Eastern Buzzards are, for all intents and purposes, the Red-tailed Hawks of East Asia

Saturday the 31st was my last full day in Japan, and another full day off. My original plan had been to take an overnight ferry to Miyake-Jima in the Izu Islands south of Tokyo, where I would be able to spend a few hours looking for island endemics and then look for albatrosses and other pelagic birds on the ferry trip back. Unfortunately a pressure system was moving through Tokyo that weekend and several people told me that there was a good chance of one or both ferry rides being canceled. The weather forecast for Miyake-Jima also called for a steady temperature of -10º Celsius, and I very much did not have the winter clothing to deal with that. Instead, I decided to book a ticket on the Shinkansen out to Karuizawa, a little mountain town in Nagano Prefecture west of Tokyo. Karuizawa is a popular destination for skiers, and also for birders hoping to find some winter birds like Japanese Accentor, Japanese Grosbeak, and (with luck) Copper Pheasant or Pallas's Rosefinch. 

I departed Tokyo at 6AM on Saturday, and had a very enjoyable 2-hour trip on the Shinkansen watching the scenery transition from the Tokyo suburbs to the rice fields and industrial zones of the Kantō Plain and then finally the forested mountain range that runs through the center of Honshu island. It was also a great chance to sit and stew in jealousy at Japanese people for living in a country with a functional train system. 

Mount Akagi, one of the many stratovolcanoes in central Honshu

The train dropped me in Karuizawa along with a gaggle of Tokyoites heading up the mountains for a ski outing. Karuizawa itself is a picturesque little mountain town full of touristy shops and European-style cottages. It could be mistaken for somewhere in Switzerland if it weren't for the huge active volcano of Mount Asama looming in the distance emitting steam from its summit crater. I took the bus into the center of the town and got off near the pin of a recent eBird checklist that had some of my target species. Google Maps took me into a residential area on the outskirts of town with lots of summer cottages sitting in the shadow of huge Japanese Hemlock trees. A Eurasian Sparrowhawk was circling overhead when I got off the bus and there were little flocks of tits and other small birds hanging around in people's backyards, including Oriental Greenfinches, Asian Tits, Varied Tits, Coal Tits, and Marsh Tits, the latter two species I hadn't seen since my trip to Nikkō a few years ago.

Eurasian Sparrowhawk

Oriental Greenfinch

Varied Tit

Asian Tit (curse whoever decided to get rid of the "Japanese Tit" moniker)

The forest road outside of Karuizawa

After some walking I found a little knitting shop next to a dried-up river that had a bird feeder with lots of Oriental Greenfinches and Bramblings, as well as a single Hawfinch, my first lifer of the day (it wasn't nice enough to pose for pictures). Eventually a big group of Brown-eared Bulbuls came in and started making a ruckus, so I decided it was time to move on and find a different birding spot. 

Brambling

Oriental Greenfinch

The main birding location in Karuizawa is the Karuizawa Wild Bird Sanctuary in the hills above the town. Getting there required getting back on the bus and riding until the end of the line, where there was a set of onsen and touristy cafes along a mountain river. I wasn't entirely sure where to go from there so I just wandered around until I found a dirt road and then a trail going into the forested hills nearby. That turned out to be a good decision as there were lots of birds along the trail including a flock of Long-tailed Tits, the usual Japanese Tits and Varied Tits, Bramblings, and dozens of Dusky Thrushes. A ways along the trail I ran into what turned out to be a guided bird walk run by a local conservation organization. It was all in Japanese and it felt a bit awkward gatecrashing, but I was happy when the whole group stopped at a spot where a huge group of winter finches were coming down from the trees to feed along the trail, including Bramblings, Hawfinches, and Japanese Grosbeaks–my second lifer of the day. 

Long-tailed Tit

Brambling

Dusky Thrush

Annoyingly enough this is the only picture I ever got of a Hawfinch

Japanese Grosbeak

The river above the onsen in Karuizawa

I left the group behind and continued wandering around the woods, hoping to see as many birds as I could before I had to return to the town to catch my train back to Tokyo. Deciduous forests feel pretty similar throughout the northern hemisphere in terms of flora and fauna, especially in winter, and it kind of felt like I was walking through the woods in Michigan–though again the huge smoking volcano in the distance was a key difference. I came across a few more little flocks of birds as I walked, and reconnected with a few more birds I hadn't seen since Nikkō: Great Spotted Woodpeckers, a Japanese Green Woodpecker, Japanese Pygmy Woodpeckers, Eurasian Nuthatches, Eurasian Treecreepers, and a nice Eurasian Jay that refused to pose for a picture. After the path took me back down to the river I happened upon a little group of Meadow Buntings feeding on the ground, and shortly after a tiny bird hopping around in the underbrush that I thought at first was a wren. It turned out to be a Japanese Accentor, a near-endemic species that's usually high up in the mountains and only comes down to the lowlands in the winter months. It was probably my favorite lifer of the trip, and a new family for me to boot. 

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Eurasian Treecreeper

Eurasian Nuthatch

Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker

Japanese Accentor!

The Karuizawa woods with Mount Asama in the distance

Mount Asama above the bus station

I got back to the onsen at 1PM, just in time to catch the bus down to the train station and get on my train to Tokyo. Back in Tokyo, I walked back to my hotel by way of the Imperial Palace and Hibiya Park. At the palace moat there were the usual Falcated Ducks and Gadwalls showing off nicely in the late afternoon light. There was a photographer with a bazooka lens staked out at the pond in Hibiya Park, and it turned out that he was there to take pictures of the local Common Kingfisher which made a couple of appearances along with a good-looking Grey Heron. 

Falcated Duck

Gadwall

Common Kingfisher–easily in the top 5 best-looking birds with "common" in their name

The next morning I flew out of Tokyo toward Indonesia, my next destination of the trip. As per usual with work trips I didn't have nearly as much time as I would have liked to bird and there were lots of potential lifers on the table I didn't connect with. Still, I managed to see 6 new birds in my limited birding time (already more than I got in all of 2025, embarrassingly enough), and reconnected with many more species I hadn't seen in years. Not a bad way to start out the year!

Toyko and Mount Fuji from the airplane

The mountains of central Honshu