We had a few days in the Urahoro area last week…
It’s a well-known stopping-off point for several species of goose. The most interesting species is Snow Goose, there were (I’d estimate) over 1000 of them.
Lots of juveniles too, surely a good sign.
Apart from the geese it was a pretty quiet trip birdwise. The above Marsh Sandpiper was a surprise and we saw lots of raptors including my first Steller’s Sea Eagles of the winter. Winter ducks and gulls are returning to various locales, autumn will end in a couple of weeks.
(Taiga?) Bean Geese were also common in Urahoro….
On the second say we couldn’t get near the Snow Geese…
They are very easy to pick out among the Grey Geese, as you can see here:
Greater White-fronted Geese are generally the most numerous species near Hakodate but this is not the case in Urahoro. Here are some adults and juveniles together.
These shots were just before a White-tailed Eagle spooked the whole flock and off they went…
Some group shots…
Though it seemed most of the geese had already departed south, 4 species remained including the diminutive Cackling Goose…
Although I was more interested in the Snow Geese…
We only had half an hour with the flock…
The sun went behind a hill…
We were there for the geese but there were other birds around.
Last year we went to this same location and saw 000’s of geese in several spots we bookmarked on google maps.
We were several days later in 2021 and there were far fewer geese around and of course they were not loyal to particular fields…
We only got close one time and luckily it was mostly in golden afternoon light.
Just got back from a trip to eastern Hokkaido. Our main target was geese and we saw some but not as many as last year….
