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Much as I would like to spend another 24 hours awake writing up a long blog about what a great day I had - and I did, even if I didn’t break any listing records - I do need to get a little sleep before I use the two hours of available time tomorrow [...]

Just a few hours to go until 2008 - at least just a few hours here to the north of Tokyo (the title of this post is - I think - a rough anglicisation of the countdown to 2008 Japanese-style). I’ve just watched the fireworks going off in Auckland courtesy of the BBC; back in [...]

I wrote a post yesterday about how a common bird in one area is sometimes seen as being a vagrant in another: specifically how some relatively common North American birds (eg American Robin, Black and White Warbler, Dark-eyed Junco) cause twitchers on my side of “the pond” to - well, start ‘twitching’. Vagrancy isn’t of [...]

The Black-tailed Gull Larus crassirostris is endemic to North-East Asia, breeding on sandy and rocky shores, islands and cliffs in the Sea of Japan/East Sea and wintering south as far as Hong Kong where it is a scarce visitor. It has not yet been recorded in Europe, but is an increasingly identified vagrant to North [...]

Narita, Choshi Fishing Port, and Narita-san Temple Complex, Chiba Prefecture, Japan
29 - 31 January 2006
 

Narita High Street - the Temple is ten minutes down this road.

 
The following report is of a short trip to the small Japanese town of Narita, about an hour’s train ride north-east of Tokyo. Narita is the site of the [...]

Choshi Port, Chiba Prefecture, Japan.
30 January 2006
 

 
Birding options in mid-winter in the Tokyo/Narita region are fairly limited if you’re on a short trip - like northern Europe and the northern parts of North America there are relatively few passerines around (most are struggling to find shelter in what’s left of the equatorial rainforests [...]