Andrea and David B. Collinge's trip to Japan, July 2011

Full Birdlist - Yatsu Higata - Kawayu - Nemuru - Gallery

The Kushiro Wetlands are vast. Approximately the size of Tokyo, it is stated.: 22000 Ha. The train to the north coast passes through the eastern part of the reserve with four stops. We took a special excursion train with wooden seats and stuffed toy birds and mammals hanging from the ceiling. We left the train at Toro, intending to take the next train south but ended up spending the whole afternoon here, viewing several small lakes, the birdless larger Toro Lake and a mosquito-rich woodland. Highlights were a male Wigeon, kites, vociferous Japanese Bush-Warblers,  and Long-tailed Rosefinch, the latter from an excellent viewing tower near the station. But no cranes. The habitat here was mixtures of fen woodland, open water and reed marsh, surrounded by wooded hills.

The next day we decided to take the bus to the visitors centre on the west side of the reserve. This is at the top of a hill in forest and the reserve here is dry oak woodland with an understory of dwarf bamboo. After about an hour's walk, we came down to the marsh, which is is open fen. This was much more productive and yielded most of the species noted including Siberian Rubythroat and Lanceolated Warbler.

But no cranes. We returned to the reserve centre and asked about cranes and they suggested that we went to the crane reserve. This entailed a taxi ride for 20 minutes and the "reserve" transpired to be the breeding project which had saved the cranes from extinction. About 10 pairs with at least two chicks. Wild birds here included several kites and a male Long-tailed Rosefinch.

We passed through the reserve again en route to Kawayu, there is a large shallow lake just north of Toro where deer were wading, further north again, the marsh narrows to a river valley and we finally glimpsed 4-5 cranes from the train.

The train trip to Nemuru passes Akkeshi, where there is a large lagoon and estuary. Gooseander, shoveller and sea eagle were spotted from the train.