{"id":23577,"date":"2012-11-03T21:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-03T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnandrewwright.com\/?p=2039"},"modified":"2019-12-22T22:31:21","modified_gmt":"2019-12-22T09:31:21","slug":"bird-tour-report-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/bird-tour-report-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Bird Tour Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Sunday midday until Wednesday afternoon I guided a visiting birder from Canada around places in Kumamoto, Nagasaki and Saga prefectures. Firstly we went to Yatsushiro and Hikawa Estuary, where we saw gulls and shorebirds, however the Black-faced Spoonbills that I had expected there were not to be found. The next morning we watched Streaked Shearwater and Brown Booby from Futsu Port, and then headed up Mount Unzen to Azamidani which was very quiet. In the afternoon we explored the Isahaya Reclaimed Land Areas, the highlights of which were Amur Falcon, Eastern Marsh Harrier and Black Stork.<\/p>\n

The next day we went out to Kabashima and although the weather was pretty bad we managed to see a few interesting birds such as Japanese Thrush and Asian Brown Flycatcher. We then headed to Daijyugarami in hopes of catching the Black-faced Spoonbills, but alas we didn\u2019t spot them. Although there were a lot of shorebirds, the high tide was not so high and many species remained at the water\u2019s edge \u2013 too far out for us to identify them properly. However just as we were leaving we spotted a Bewick\u2019s Swan flying over the canals \u2013 very surprising! On the final day we took the early ferry from Shimabara to Kumamoto, hoping for a closer look at Streaked Shearwater and perhaps Swinhoe\u2019s Storm Petrel, but we only had good views of Brown Booby.<\/p>\n

As we headed over the bridge linking Kumamoto Port to the mainland, we joking quipped about the egrets on our left being Black-faced Spoonbill and then, when I glanced to my right, I spotted one right in close to the bridge! Of course, my guest didn\u2019t quite believe me, but I turned the car around and we went back and had great views of several birds foraging in the shallow mudflat \u2013 the first time I had observed them at this location. We were thrilled with the discovery and then proceeded out to the Mount Aso area which is famous in summer for its Japanese Reed Buntings.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was expecting to find other buntings there, such as Chestnut-eared, Rustic, Common Reed, etc., but although there seemed to be many birds, only Meadow Bunting and Zitting Cisticola were positively identified. We also flushed a male Japanese Green Pheasant as we were leaving. Finally we tried Edu Lake, hoping for some new species but it was pretty quiet with only common birds, although we did get good views of a beautiful Common Kingfisher.<\/p>\n

Overall, I think the birding was poor in terms of density, however we did manage 87 species with a further 3 species glimpsed. Among those species were some quality birds such as Black-faced Spoonbill, Japanese Green Pheasant, Amur Falcon, Blue-and-white Flycatcher, Japanese Thrush, Eastern Marsh Harrier, Black Stork, Bewick\u2019s Swan, Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, Mongolian Plover, Far Eastern Curlew, Eastern Yellow Wagtail, Japanese Cormorant and Bull-headed Shrike. Below is the complete list:<\/p>\n

Carrion Crow
\nBlack-eared Kite
\nLarge-billed Crow
\nGrey Heron
\nLittle Egret
\nEastern Great Egret
\nBlack-crowned Night Heron
\nVega Gull
\nBlack-tailed Gull
\nBlack-headed Gull
\nOsprey
\nGreat Cormorant
\nJapanese Cormorant
\nFar Eastern Curlew
\nCurlew Sandpiper
\nDunlin
\nTerek Sandpiper
\nCommon Sandpiper
\nCommon Snipe
\nCommon Greenshank
\nBar-tailed Godwit
\nMallard
\nEurasian Teal
\nEurasian Wigeon
\nEastern Spot-billed Duck
\nGadwall
\nEurasian Siskin
\nOriental Greenfinch
\nMeadow Bunting
\nDaurian Redstart
\nOriental Turtle Dove
\nRock Dove
\nBlue Rock Thrush
\nWhite-cheeked Starling
\nBull-headed Shrike
\nEurasian Tree Sparrow
\nJapanese Wagtail
\nBrown Booby
\nStreaked Shearwater
\nVaried Tit
\nEastern Great Tit
\nBrambling
\nGreater Scaup
\nNorthern Pintail
\nCommon Pochard
\nNorthern Shoveler
\nWhiskered Tern
\nHen Harrier
\nEastern Marsh Harrier
\nEurasian Kestrel
\nAmur Falcon
\nIntermediate Egret
\nCommon Coot
\nCommon Moorhen
\nSiberian Stonechat
\nZitting Cisticola
\nBlack Stork
\nGrey Wagtail
\nWhite Wagtail (nominate plus 3 subspecies \u2013 lumens, lugens, ocularis)
\nCommon Starling
\nLittle Grebe
\nSand Martin
\nBarn Swallow
\nJapanese Thrush
\nBlue-and-white Flycatcher
\nAsian Brown Flycatcher
\nJapanese Pygmy Woodpecker
\nBrown-eared Bulbul
\nArctic Warbler
\nPeregrine Falcon
\nEastern Buzzard
\nEurasian Skylark
\nCommon Magpie
\nBewick\u2019s Swan
\nJapanese White-eye
\nEastern Yellow Wagtail
\nBlack-tailed Godwit
\nEurasian Curlew
\nGreater Sand Plover
\nMongolian Plover
\nRed-necked Stint
\nGrey Plover
\nKentish Plover
\nPacific Golden Plover
\nBlack-faced Spoonbill
\nJapanese Green Pheasant
\nCommon Kingfisher<\/p>\n

Identified but not seen or seen well:<\/p>\n

Japanese Bush Warbler
\nRed-flanked Bluetail
\nMerlin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Sunday midday until Wednesday afternoon I guided a visiting birder from Canada around places in Kumamoto, Nagasaki and Saga prefectures. Firstly we went to Yatsushiro and Hikawa Estuary, where we saw gulls and shorebirds, however the Black-faced Spoonbills that I had expected there were not to be found. The next morning we watched Streaked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":2192566,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/black-stork-1200-240-7096-682x1024.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"Bird Tour Report","footnotes":""},"categories":[6984,5],"tags":[885,705,736,727,700,875,748,728,779,879,742,828,724,24,608,833,523,224,786,7760,494,787,781,707],"class_list":["post-23577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogs","category-wildlife","tag-amur-falcon","tag-barn-swallow","tag-black-stork","tag-black-faced-spoonbill","tag-black-tailed-godwit","tag-common-kingfisher","tag-common-snipe","tag-eastern-great-egret","tag-greenfinch","tag-grey-wagtail","tag-hen-harrier","tag-kestrel","tag-marsh-harrier","tag-merlin","tag-osprey","tag-pacific-golden-plover","tag-peregrine","tag-peregrine-falcon","tag-red-kite","tag-sparrow","tag-starling","tag-turtle-dove","tag-white-wagtail","tag-yellow-wagtail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2192566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}