Tag Archives: Gulls

Plenty of Partridges: Braden & I Kick Off Another Year of Birding!

Braden and I kicked off our 2025 at one of our favorite western Montana birding spots: Ninepipe National Wildlife Refuge. While mainly envisioned as a duck factory, the surrounding farms and grasslands provide plenty of grassland bird habitat and raptor hunting grounds, so in winter that’s what we mainly search for. We began the day by looking for Short-eared Owls at a “vole-opolis” our neighbor Tim, a game bird hunter, told us about last year (see our post “Lost in Owls”). Sure enough, we got distant looks at three of these mesmerizing, long-winged raptors as they cruised low over a tapestry of grass and cattails. They were joined by a trio of Northern Harriers, birds that are so similar to Short-eared Owls in appearance and habits that they offer an almost perfect lesson in convergent evolution—the incidence of two unrelated species being shaped in similar ways by natural selection.

Braden celebrating seeing Short-eared Owls in 2025!

After our time with the owls and harriers, we set out on a leisurely cruise northward on dirt roads with the spectacular snow-capped Mission Mountains majestically gazing down on us. The raptors continued to please, with great close-up looks at our first Golden Eagle of the year, three or four Rough-legged Hawks, a couple of American Kestrels, two Merlins, plenty of Red-tailed Hawks, and no fewer than a dozen Bald Eagles.

**This Northern Harrier is seriously eye-balling a group of Gray Partridges below, but decided not to go for it.**

I’ve been worried about a dearth of small song birds all year, and that continued today. Usually, we at least see some waxwings or American Tree Sparrows at Ninepipe, but not today. I’m hoping the warmer winter somehow explains it, but I am especially concerned about the pervasive use of neonicotinoid pesticides and their deadly effects on birds. A future blog post, perhaps.

While songbirds were few and far between, we encountered a veritable population explosion of a bird we usually see only once or thrice a year: Gray Partridges! In the space of an hour or two, we saw these birds at least half a dozen times in groups ranging from four to more than a dozen. “I think I’ve seen more Gray Partridges today than in the rest of my life,” I told Braden, and it might have been true, as we totaled almost seventy of these birds. As with the rest of the day, I managed only lousy photos, but we delighted in watching these introduced, but charming, orange-faced critters.

Another fuzzy shot, but entertaining just the same—a Gray Partridge zooming toward us. These birds are unusually difficult to photograph, and I doubt I’ve ever gotten a good shot of them.

We finished the day scouring the southern shore of Flathead Lake near Polson. We had to look pretty hard, but finally found good numbers of waterfowl and gulls at Ducharme fishing access. Here we were rewarded by more than five hundred Common Mergansers, and much smaller numbers of wigeons, Mallards, Buffleheads, Green-winged Teal, Northern Pintails—and a lone Redhead. Braden also picked out several Tundra Swans from the more numerous Trumpeters.

Tundra Swans on Flathead Lake. These birds can be hard to distinguish from Trumpeter Swans, but they have small yellow patches forward of their eyes, and often have overall whiter heads and necks than Trumpeters.

Perhaps my favorite part of this last big session was focusing in on a group of seventy or eighty gulls out on a frozen edge of the lake. Part of my enthusiasm was having just received a review copy of Amar Ayyash’s epic new book, The Gull Guide: North America. I plan to write a full review of this remarkable book soon, but my first perusals have gotten me super excited to learn more about gulls. Even better, as Braden and I studied the group in front of us through our scope, we picked out both Ring-billed and Herring Gulls. Then, I paused on a gull that looked unlike any others. It had pink legs, medium gray wings, dark eyes, light head streaking, and a single red spot on the bill. It also was noticeably smaller than the Herring Gull next to it. Braden suggested a Thayer’s Iceland Gull and I have to say that I agree with him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get decent photos and gulls are notoriously hard to ID, so we didn’t record it. Still, I’m thinking Thayer’s is what we saw.

**Ring-billed and Herring Gulls on Flathead Lake. It’s easy to pick out the Herring Gulls by their large sizes. Maybe I’ll even find some other species after studying The Gull Guide in depth!**

And so it begins . . . a great new year of birding! I hope you’ve all been able to get out and enjoy the remarkable avian wildlife our planet is blessed with. In fact, if you haven’t already done so, I urge you to support one or more of the terrific conservation groups working to make sure birds are always with us. For more info, see our post “Saving Birds. It’s Time.” Thanks for reading and I hope to see some of you out there birding soon!

Birding Race Point: Cape Cod’s Pelagic Playground

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The week before Thanksgiving, my family had the opportunity to visit a place that featured prominently in my childhood—Cape Cod, Massachusetts. We headed to Boston so that I could accept a big award for my picture book, Border Crossings, but the trip provided many piggybacking opportunities. These included a chance to look at colleges for Braden’s sister, Tessa, and to meet up with Braden for Thanksgiving. After Amy, Tessa, and I spent a few days in Boston, in fact, Braden drove down from the University of Maine and whisked us off to the Cape.

I spent parts of many summers in Woods Hole on the Cape. My father did his post-doc at WHOI—the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. My step-father spent dozens of summers in Woods Hole doing research and teaching classes at the MBL—the Marine Biological Laboratories. I have many fond (and some not-so-fond) memories of those summers, but had not been back for (gasp) 45 years! I looked forward to revisiting old haunts and showing my family some of the places that had shaped my childhood. Naturally, Braden and I also considered the birding possibilities.

When Braden first mentioned going to Race Point near Provincetown, I hesitated. I recalled driving up there as a ten-year-old and didn’t relish spending an extra four hours of our vacation in a car. When Braden started telling me what we might find there, however, I quickly changed my mind.

Race Point, it turns out, is one of the nation’s premiere places for spotting seabirds from land. A map reveals an obvious reason: Cape Cod juts miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, and the tip—Race Point itself—is surrounded on three sides by the sea. This means that birders have an opportunity to see both regular beach-type birds and many species that only rarely show up near land. Braden and I especially hoped to see jaegers, “tube noses” such as shearwaters, and any interesting gulls or ducks that happened to be around.

After a delicious breakfast at Liz’s Café in Provincetown, Braden and I left Amy and Tessa to explore while we headed off to the parking lot near Race Point lighthouse. As soon as we approached the beach, we spotted Northern Gannets soaring above wild, wind-raked seas. I’d only ever gotten a brief look at a NOGA before, when Braden and I had visited Acadia National Park three years before, so right away the drive up to Provincetown redeemed itself!

However, the excitement was just beginning.

**One of perhaps 150 Northern Gannets we saw at Race Point. Like Blue-footed Boobies, these birds torpedo straight down into schools of fish.**

As wind and sand pelted us, groups of White-winged and Black Scoters, Common Eiders, and Long-tailed Ducks skimmed the waves just offshore. Some occasionally landed, but most seemed hell-bent for destinations only they knew about. All were birds I had scant experience with, so I soaked up every sighting.

**This was only my second time seeing Common Eiders, and I was uber impressed by the coloration of both females and males.**

“There’s a Red-throated Loon!” Braden said, pointing to a bird with an exceedingly pale, long neck reaching up from the surface. It wouldn’t be long before we saw several Common Loons, differentiated by blockier heads, chunkier bills, and more black on their faces.

**Only my second Red-throated Loon ever. Note the smooth, rounded head and white “winter” face.**

At the top of our To Find list were Great Shearwaters, a potential Lifer for both of us. These birds belong to the “tube noses,” the same group of birds that includes albatrosses, fulmars, and storm-petrels. These birds are truly seafarers, rarely approaching shore. Only a few weeks ago, I had caught a glimpse of Sooty Shearwaters while visiting California’s Point Reyes National Park with my friend Scott. Great Shearwaters had been sighted regularly at Race Point for the past couple of weeks, but alas, we arrived too late to see them today.

**Braden fruitlessly searching the seas for Great Shearwaters and jaegers.**

We still had plenty of thrilling birds to look at, however. As we trudged the mile and a half through the soft sand toward the very tip of the Cape, flocks of Dunlin and Sanderlings in their winter plumages worked the drifts of foam left on the beach by each encroaching wave. We even saw a group of six Horned Larks, birds we were used to seeing on the backroads of Montana—not here at the end of the world.

**It had been years since I’d gotten to hang with Dunlins, and it was a real treat.**

Not to be outdone, gulls also put on a show. This was the first time I’d ever gotten to see Great Black-backed Gulls in a natural setting. They are the world’s largest gulls, and I gotta say they looked like they belonged in this rugged, challenging environment.

“Look!” Braden suddenly shouted. “Iceland Gull!” Two of them, in fact. These gulls had until recently been split into Iceland and Thayer’s Gull, and Braden and I had seen the latter at the Helena landfill in Montana. This look was much more memorable as both a juvenile and adult landed near us. Both were gorgeous birds with subtle markings, and they quickly jumped into contention for Bird of the Day honors. Not long after seeing the Iceland Gulls, Braden also spotted a Black-legged Kittiwake. I was grateful he’d gained experience with all of these birds while on the East Coast, because I certainly would have missed a lot of them.

**I don’t even want to know what this Great Black-backed Gull is eating, as our two Iceland Gulls look on.**

I picked up two Lifers for the day. One was Razorbill, a kind of black-and-white alcid I had dreamed about seeing for years (see our post “All About Alcids”). During our hike to the lighthouse and back, we saw about eighty of these birds in groups, flying low or bobbing up and down in the jagged waves. My second Lifer was a pair of Purple Sandpipers that landed in front of us and shouldn’t have been anywhere near a wide sandy beach. Like its closely-related West Coast cousin the Rock Sandpiper, these are rocky shore birds.

**I was especially thrilled to see my Lifer Razorbills, but it’s a tossup whether these or the Iceland Gulls grabbed Bird of the Day honors.**

“They must be migrating,” I said, and Braden agreed, though we were well within their wintering latitudes.

As we trudged back toward the car, Braden spotted a fin jutting out of the water. At first we thought it might be the dorsal fin of a shark or orca, but after watching it for a few minutes, we concluded that we were looking at the tail flukes of a larger whale. I’d seen quite a few humpback whales before, and these didn’t look anything like it. “I think it’s a Right Whale,” I said. Later, we learned that Right Whales had been regularly spotted in the area. It was one more unforgettable discovery for a memorable day.

Race Point eBird Checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S203601766

Eastern Montana Odyssey 2024: Bowdoin NWR & Fort Peck

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Here is Part 2 of Braden’s and my eastern Montana trip report, which began with a wonderful time at the Wings Across the Big Sky birding festival in Helena (see our last post by clicking here). Today’s installment details this year’s visit to one of our favorite birding destinations, Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge, and then our evening birding and camping at Fort Peck. Enjoy and please feel free to share this post!

After our two days enjoying scintillating field trips and lectures at this year’s Wings Across the Big Sky birding festival in Helena, Braden and I spent two nights at American Prairie’s Antelope Creek Campground. I’d tell you what we were doing there, but for now at least, our lips are sealed. On Tuesday morning, however, we rose early, packed the car and headed toward what has become an annual favorite father-son destination: 15,551-acre Bowdoin National Wildlife Refuge.

**You know you’ve reached eastern Montana when you start seeing Franklin’s Gulls. These gulls were made famous by ZZ Top’s classic hit, “Sharp-Dressed Gulls!”**

It had actually been a couple of years since Braden and I visited Bowdoin together, so we especially relished this year’s opportunity. Bowdoin offers a wonderful mix of wetlands and prairie habitat where you can find a terrific diversity of birds. Even better, this year’s water levels showed a significant improvement over last year, when it looked as though the main lake might dry up altogether.

Unfortunately, today, windy conditions proved a challenge, especially in the grassland sections. While usually we can just drive with the windows open, listening for various songs, this year we generally had to keep the windows rolled up to keep from being sand-blasted by wind and dust. The wind also forced the smaller sparrows that we especially sought to sit down in the grass where they were difficult if not impossible to see. Only the intrepid meadowlarks braved the tops of sage plants, being blown back and forth as if they were on a carnival ride.

**We saw at least 18 Willets while driving the Bowdoin loop—a record for us there. These birds, like several other shorebirds, breed in the grasslands around the main lake.**

Nonetheless, thanks to diligence and Braden’s great ears, we managed to locate at least a few Chestnut-collared Longspurs, Lark Buntings, and Grasshopper, Lark, Clay-colored, Savannah, and Song Sparrows.

We also got great looks at White-faced Ibises, Willets, American Avocets, and other “usual suspects” in the aquatic realm. It’s always reassuring to see the hundreds of white pelicans nesting out on the main island.

**We never get tired of seeing Wilson’s Phalaropes, which breed at Bowdoin NWR in good numbers.**

One bird we especially missed was a Baltimore Oriole, which we usually see by stopping at the refuge visitor center before driving the big loop. After we finished the loop, however, we decided to give the BAORs one more shot and sat in our car munching our turkey-and-cheese sandwiches. Sure enough, after ten minutes, a bright orange bird with a black head flew across our vision! Sometimes, you just gotta be patient. All told, we observed 76 species at Bowdoin. But our day had not yet finished.

Our Bowdoin Bird List.

I’ve always felt captivated by these giant Art Deco power station towers at Fort Peck Dam. By camping here, we discovered that the towers are brilliantly lit up at night—a strange effect so far from “civilization.”

After Bowdoin, we drove to Fort Peck to spend the night camping below the dam. I’ve always been fascinated with the story of the Fort Peck dam and how, out in the middle of nowhere, a medium-sized city sprang up to build what, at the time, was by far the largest dam in the world. Today, it is still impressive, stretching more than four miles long, and “looked over” by two large (and to me beautiful) Art Deco power plant towers.

**Who said Fort Peck doesn’t have fine dining?**

Braden and I found a cozy campsite, set up our tents, and set out to explore the extensive campground. Our top target here were Field Sparrows. We didn’t see any. But we did get an unexpected triple shot of orioles: Baltimore, Bullock’s, and Orchard, all of which dropped by our campsite at least once.

**Fort Peck gave us by far our most cooperative experience ever with Baltimore Orioles. This male was part of at least two breeding pairs we found in the campground.**

We also got great looks at another Montana favorite, Brown Thrashers, the first of quite a few we would see on our trip.

**One of our favorite Montana birds, Brown Thrashers would put in several appearances on our trip, including right in our Fort Peck campsite!**

We generally try to avoid staying at large campgrounds, which can be noisy and sterile, but I was glad we gave Fort Peck a try. Even though my sleeping pad kept deflating through the night, the campground was a bit out of the wind, and offered up birds aplenty! Besides, how could I dislike a place that featured my book Beaver & Otter Get Along . . . Sort Of on its summer reading program? Tomorrow, we would try more prairie birding and hope that the wind would die down . . . but would it? Stay tuned for our next report!

**As we were lining up our campsite, Braden suddenly exclaimed, “Oh my god! It’s your book!” Helped make my day!** **Thank you Fort Peck!**

Wedding Birding in Washington State, Part II

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Braden and I write FatherSonBirding in the hopes of sharing the wonders of birds and birding, and the urgency to protect them. We do not accept advertising or donations, but if you’d like to support our work, please consider buying *NEW* copies of some of Sneed’s books—First-Time Japan, for instance, or my forthcoming picture book for younger readers, Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-of-a-Kind Creatures, available for pre-order now. We appreciate your interest and hope you will keep reading!

In case you missed Wedding Birding Part I, click here!

Saturday was the long-anticipated wedding day of our friends, Jazz and Brad, but the Big Event wasn’t kicking off until 3:30 p.m. True to my recent trend, I awoke at 3:30 a.m. with ample time to hit the birding spot that I most looked forward to on the trip: March Point. Why? Because I thought it might offer my best opportunity to find both seabirds and shorebirds. Looking at a map, in fact, March Point looked like a wonderful, natural area and I was already envisioning pristine beaches and offshore waters loaded with birds. Imagine my surprise when I arrived at 6:00 a.m. to find that March Point is actually the site of a gigantic Marathon Petroleum refinery!

**March Point was not *quite* the undisturbed natural area I was expecting!**

It was a cold, blustery morning, but undeterred, I pulled over and scanned the offshore waters. I spotted several groups of presumed Pelagic Cormorants, but precious little else on the waters or the shore. With some persistence, I did locate another Pigeon Guillemot out near the ginormous pier jutting out into Puget Sound, but it was slim pickins.

**What do you suppose this Pelagic Cormorant is about to eat? I’m guessing an eel-like fish called a wrasse!**

I kept driving, pulling over now and then to scan the shore—no doubt closely monitored by the refinery’s security team. Finally, at one pull-out, I spotted a bird near the top of my trip wish list: a Black Oystercatcher. I watched this magnificent bird from my car for several minutes before it flew off, leaving a smile on my face.

**This Black Oystercatcher at March Point definitely strolled into contention for “Trip Bird” honors for our Wedding Day weekend.**

Turning around, I made my way back around immense oil storage tanks and stopped to study some Glaucous-winged X Western hybrid gulls. It took some research and a discussion with Braden to figure out exactly what these gulls were. Glaucous-winged Gulls are known for beautiful soft gray wings and wing tips, but all of the gulls I was seeing looked too dark—yet not dark enough to be Western Gulls. According to Braden, though, this part of Washington State was dead center in the transition zone between the two species, and accordingly, most of the birds were hybrids.

**This Glaucous-winged X Western hybrid gull is typical of the gulls I saw during our entire trip to Washington: too dark for Glaucous-winged, too light for Western. Very educational!**

On my way back to the hotel, I stopped at Padilla Bay at the base of March Point for a nice visit with some warblers and swallows. There, I heard my year’s first Black-headed Grosbeak giving off its frenetic robin-like song. Then, it was back to Burlington to prepare for the wedding.

The wedding was a smash hit, full of love and music and joy. And never fear, dear readers, I did amass an eBird list of six species at the wedding venue, including the year’s first look at a Black-headed Grosbeak, singing in celebration of Jazz and Brad’s big day. Oh, and they (Jazz and Brad, not the grosbeaks) served Thai food at the wedding. How good is that???

Alas, the next day, we were due to return to Seattle for our flight home. Fortunately, we didn’t need to be at the airport until noon or one o’clock, leaving time for one last morning birding adventure. I really wasn’t sure where I should go. I wasn’t having much luck along the coast, and felt I’d seen most of the forest birds that interested me. But there were two more species I wanted to take a shot at: Black-throated Gray Warbler and Red-breasted Sapsucker.

**Ted Reep Park offered the trip’s last birding opportunity—and my best shot at seeing both Red-breasted Sapsuckers and Black-throated Gray Warblers.** **A bit of bush-whacking required!**

It had been years since I’d seen either one of these birds and, well, I was missing them. Lucky me, eBird showed a spot only a mile from our hotel which had recorded both birds in the past month. I wasn’t sure what my chances of finding them might be, but after a quick bowl of oatmeal, I made my way over to Ted Reep Park. I parked in the deserted YMCA lot, despite warning signs threatening that I would be towed. After all, I was a member of the Missoula YMCA!

From the time I pulled up, the spot looked—or rather, sounded—promising. Merlin’s Sound ID immediately picked up White-crowned Sparrow, Black-headed Grosbeak, Warbling Vireo, Song Sparrow, Yellow Warbler, and more, and I soon started seeing some of these birds.

**You just gotta love Song Sparrows. Not only are they incredibly handsome critters, they often pose for close-up photographs!**

This was thick riparian habitat, however, where visuals were hard to come by and most birding was by ear—not ideal for someone like myself with hearing disabilities and a brain that had trouble remembering bird vocalizations. My new hearing aids were a vast improvement over my old ones, though, and with the help of Sound ID I began teasing out most of the species around me. Then, I heard something that got me really excited: a stuttering drumming sound, like a car having trouble starting up! A sapsucker! But which one?

A quick look at my Sibley app told me that Red-breasted was the only sapsucker remotely likely to be in this area, so I plunged into the woods, following the trail toward the stutter-step drumming. Predictably, the trail grew more and more sketchy, and I soon found myself crawling under and over logs that had fallen across the path. Nevertheless, after five minutes, I found myself standing directly beneath the sapsucker drumming.

There were at least two sapsuckers—but probably three or four—and it became evident that they were dueling, perhaps over territories or mates. But darn it, try as I might, I could not spot any of them against the backlit tree trunks and branches! Just as frustrating, the birds kept moving around, so like a Keystone Cop I chased the birds up and down the trail. Finally, I despaired of getting a look at any of them, but by now I at least was confident that these were indeed Red-breasted Sapsuckers. And wouldn’t you know, as soon as I decided that, two of the birds chased each other right by me, their red heads clearly visible even in the dark forest!

Happy, I bushwhacked through raspberry vines and a swath of chest-high grass until I ran into another trail that led me back toward my car. I still hadn’t seen a Black-throated Gray Warbler, and didn’t find one on the hike back, but I was delighted to have discovered such a wonderful birding spot. It again reaffirmed how important it is to protect natural habitats for animals and people. Bravo Washington for protecting places like Ted Reep Park!

Washington Wedding Trip Report!

I failed to capture any photos of the Red-breasted Sapsuckers, but just love this White-crowned Sparrow’s pose out at March Point. I think he’s singing “Once we all wean ourselves off of fossil fuels, we can turn this place back into the natural habitat it is meant to be!” At least that’s what Google Translate came up with.

Birding Japan: Return to Tokyo and Trip Wrap

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Since we published them, our birding posts about Japan have been read in more than a dozen countries. If you are planning your own trip to Japan, you’re in luck! Sneed’s new book, FIRST-TIME JAPAN: A STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE FOR THE INDEPENDENT TRAVELER, tells you everything you need to know about how to plan your trip to this remarkable, yet sometimes intimidating, country. Order now by clicking here.

This wraps up Sneed’s birding adventures in Japan. We hope you’ve enjoyed these posts, especially if you might be contemplating a birding or, more likely, semi-birding trip to this remarkable country. If this is your first time seeing these posts, please do start at the beginning so you can enjoy them all the way through. Thanks for tuning in!

After our tour around the southern part of Honshu, returning to Tokyo felt like coming home for Tessa and me, but our excitement for the world’s largest megalopolis remained undimmed. While we’d spent our first stint near Tokyo Station, I chose Shibuya for our second Tokyo visit of four nights. As expected, this part of town immediately seemed a lot more “swinging” than Tokyo Station, with gazillions of young people streaming between trains, malls, restaurants, and, well, you name it. Even better, Shibuya Station is home to the famous statue of Hachiko—the subject of a wonderful picture book by Pamela S. Turner and a pretty awful movie with Richard Gere. Having written my own heart-rending dog book, Shep—Our Most Loyal Dog, I naturally felt great affection for Hachiko.

Well, I tried birding Shibuya at night, but you can see there were a lot of distractions!

I felt less sure of my birding strategy from Shibuya, but several large parks beckoned. I also had left my beloved headlamp at the hotel near Tokyo Station, giving me an excuse to drag Tessa across town to what turned out to be one of our favorite Tokyo places, Ueno Park. The southern part of the park in particular has a large area of reed beds conducive to watching waterfowl, gulls, cormorants, and other birds.

I honestly hadn’t expected much from Ueno Park, but Tessa and I truly enjoyed it. Hint: as you’re traversing it, walk up (or down) the EAST side of the park to avoid getting lost in a neighborhood.

Rather than give a blow-by-blow of Tokyo, though, I’d like to use this last post to briefly reflect on my overall impressions of birding in Japan—keeping in mind that my experiences were somewhat limited by our decision to travel almost exclusively by public transport and that we didn’t go to any great lengths to reach any truly wild regions of the country. Then again, that is how most people visit Japan (unless they are shackled to tour buses), so my reflections may have some resonance for you.

A not-so-well kept secret is the observation deck in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building in Shinjuku. From here we got a great view of Yoyogi Park and the Meiji Jingu Shrine area.

First, I didn’t find what I consider a great diversity of birds in Japan. The country has an impressive overall total, but my guess is that many of these require travel to the extreme northern and southern points of the country. Then again, as only a modestly skilled birder, I often find that less is more. Before our trip, I learned probably 70 or 80 birds—which, to be honest, was about my capacity. Also, while I thought we might hit migration season, that did not seem to be the case. Most of the birds I saw at the end of March and beginning of April appeared to be year-round residents. A month later . . . who knows?

My last birding excursion of the trip was to Gyoen National Garden, perhaps the loveliest Tokyo park I visited on the trip–and the site of my last Japan life bird, a Pale Thrush.

Second, Japan does have very cool birds. I loved getting to know the common birds such as Black Kite, Brown-eared Bulbul, White-cheeked Starling, Japanese Tit, Dusky Thrush, and Eastern Spot-billed Duck. Added to these were some truly adrenaline-producing species such as Japanese Wagtail, Daurian Redstart, Little Ringed Plover, Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, and Bull-headed Shrike. Bottom line: even in tourist areas, birders can reap big rewards by birding Japan.

One of the real surprises of birding Japan was seeing a Northern Goshawk—a bird I’ve seen only three or four times in Montana. This is a sensitive species in Japan, so I can’t share where I saw it, but it was a trip highlight for sure.

Third, if I am fortunate enough to return to Japan, I definitely want to explore some of the more way-out places. Tessa and I invariably loved the places we visited that were more off the beaten path such as Sendai and Kanazawa, and I can only imagine what it might be like to visit tropical southern Japan and the oft-frozen isle of Hokkaido.

Even the airports in Japan are way cool. Once we got our bags checked at Haneda, we found this delightful little restaurant for one last good Japanese meal.

Fourth . . . well there is no fourth. It was an amazing trip, and birding played a significant role in my enjoyment of this unique, friendly, accessible country. With that, here are some stats for the curious . . .

Number of eBird Checklists: 27

Number of Species Observed: 56

Number of New Life Birds: 37

Species I’ve also seen in the US: 13

Most Common Bird by Number of Individuals: Brown Eared Bulbul (194 birds, just beating out Large-billed Crow with 193)

Most Surprising Bird: Northern Goshawk!!!

Favorite Bird: (tie) Japanese Wagtail & Bull-headed Shrike

Major Lesson: Keep Birding!