kenmyhre

Kenya

Posted on February 2, 2025 by kenmyhre

I saw a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills.

Actually I have seen many farms so far on my trip to Africa, even some in the Ngong Hills as we passed through on the way to Nairobi. The farmhouse depicted here is certainly a bit more grand than most farmhouses we have seen, but it represents one of the more influential places in my interest in Africa I realize that there is a lot less cache in just having seen a place like this rather than owning it.

We spent one week in Kenya, we are now just into Tanzania. We entered Kenya at night, on a 12 hour bus ride from Kampala, Uganda. I think I survived in kind of a shellshock. From the horrendous traffic for close to two hours to escape Kampala, two hours stumbling through customs, ,many hours bolt upright in seats without room for legs.

We spent three days/nights in a two bedroom apartment ten kilometers from Nakuru. After the hectic 2 week s birding tour in Uganda and the soul destroying bus ride relaxing in a nice place felt deserved. We ate in restaurants twice in that time, cooked simply and chilled at the apartment making plans and bookings for the rest of our trip.

Our one productive day was with a nice man, Moses, known by the caretaker of out apartment. He came to us as a bird guide and we hired him to take us in his strange van birding at Lake Nakuru National Park, which is why we touched down here as our first stop in Kenya.

After an hour of very confusing logistics to pay 61 USD each we entered the park. When we sat in our seats we could not see out the window; perhaps a child could. The top did open like most safari type vehicles here, and so we spent the day jumping up and down to see the birds. As it turns out Moses did not know birds. He did spot a few but mostly it was up to us to find and identify the birds. He did drive us all around the park for the whole day and we did just fine. With a guide like Tony from Mamaland in Uganda, we would have doubled our take. As it was we didn’t get many new birds, but it was a lovely scenic drive and I improved on a number of my bird photos. We did get a distant look at a Lion. I am including a shot of a Lilac Breasted Roller that has been my favourite African bird since 1985 on my first trip to South Africa with my family.

Lake Nakuru is famous for its Flamingos and while we did see some the largest concentrations of birds were the Pelicans. I have enclosed a shot of them herding their prey into clusters. They would then, sometimes in unison, dive their long necks down to grab their lunch. Very fun birds to watch.

Our bus trip from Kampala taught us a lesson. To get to Nairobi we hired Moses, in a better car, to pick us up at our apartment and drive us to our hotel in a lovely suburb of Nairobi. It took us three hours and I did not have to be peeled from my seat.

We spent four nights in The Acacia Tree hotel in Karen a district in the south of Nairobi. It was recommended by our Uganda tour companion Ronnie and it was wonderful. In some ways the Acacia tree is fairly normal, but the people, service and contacts that we got there were incredible. We were still somewhat in relax mode but we did get out and about.

One day we walked about 3 km to the Karen Blixen Museum, where a lovely young guide showed us around and explained that the farmhouse we toured is original and that a famous film was shot there. Our guide smiled shyly when, in response to my request, she correctly recited the famous first line of one of my farourite African books. We walked back, stopping at a very fancy place for coffee and samosas. The day was great for me because it was the first time in over three weeks that I have been able to walk a small amount. If you have not figured out the farmhouse by now I give up.

Our big event in Nairobi was a day with a real bird guide, Daniel, in a real safari vehicle touring Nairobi National Park. We got many birds, quite a few new, and I again improved my photos a bit. I have included a shot of the snake bird, the Anhinga, swallowing his lunch. We had watched as his long snakelike neck topped by the fish swam across the pond to the side where he was able to swallow the catch.

Rich took more photos that I have seen him do so far on this trip. We saw lots of Giraffes, a few hippos and rhinos, but the star of this day appeared near the end of the day. We were driving along not really watching for new species much when a Serval, a lovely small cat ran across the road into the tall grass. He disappeared fast but we drove carefully along a few meters and there he was, in the grass staring up at us. We got some good shots and then he slipped back into the grass, appearing in the road with a partner, where they posed for a few minutes for us. What a fitting end to a lovely day.

The next day, our last in Kenya, The Acacia Tree staff had arranged out onward passage Tanzania. We were taxied into the centre of Nairobi where a limousine took us and two females on the five hour trip, crossing the border, to Arusha, Tanzania near Mt Kilimanjaro. We will have one day off and then on to an other venture.

Tanzania

Posted in Birds and Animals, East Africa, Kenja, Uncategorized | Tagged africa, Kenya, safari, travel, wildlife | Leave a comment

Birding in Uganda

Posted on January 24, 2025 by kenmyhre

The first part of this note was sent off as an email Jan 17 after 8 days of travel. I include it now to simply keep my notes together. The remaining days of our two weeks in Uganda with Mamaland were no less hectic, leaving no time to reflect on each day’s activity. I will continue, dated Jan 23, just summarizing some of the high points.

Our trip to Entebbe ballooned from 1 ½ days to 4 days, caused by a late first flight out of Calgary. To summarize, it took an hour and a friendly American bystander to create a new route to Entebbe which arrived Thursday rather than Tuesday. It is a good thing we take long trips. Our hosts for the first part of our 7 week trip is Mamaland Safari, rearranged our 17 day tour and so now we will start on day 3 of the old itinerary.

Each day is hectic. Off before dawn, after dusk into our backcountry lodge for shower, dinner, bed. We have seen 100s of bird species, many big African animals. Our main people connections outside of Tony out guide and Ronnie our driver are the people in the lodges who are so attentive, usually carrying our stuff, sometimes holding an elbow on a tricky part of the path to our cabin. This morning as we birded the grounds of the lodge overlooking the rift valley below one fellow followed with big chairs to sit on and another turned up with coffee and china cups. On the highway between sites we see lots of people action that I sometime get snaps of as we whiz by.

We have hiked in to watch chimps lounging in the forest canopy and have gone by boat along the connector between two of the lakes that the Nile feeds. We shared the water with numerous hippos who can get too close at a time, particularly since along the banks where we can spot the birdlife they like to snooze, just below the surface. For the first time in my birding life I spotted flocks of kingfishers, the pied, as they chased each other, plunged into the river for fish and resting momentarily on the mud banks. Most days we head off early, while the sun rises and creates that golden light, to drive through a national park. Tony will pick out one of the myriad of species this world has to offer from a bush or a mound. Rich with his binoculars usually finds it before me with my camera. We head on to the next one. Sounds repetitive, but then you have to be a birder. We make our long drives mid-day and then usually get some more good birding late afternoon.

I have so many good bird photos that will take me weeks to weed through. For the moment I will share the Grey-Crowned Crane, which might have been highest on my lists for this trip.

Just today, I have finally been able to get my photo backups done. Over 2000 so far. It has been dangerous to go so long, but time and weariness have been hard on me. So no time to process pictures let alone choose any to send.

Jan 23,

I am picking up this story at the Tilapia Lodge on a bay of Lake Victoria looking across at Entebbe, where we started the first night. We arrived last night and will spend two quiet days here before leaving for Kenya. Hopefully, internet permitting, I can post the note.

Jan 16-18 Topi Lodge

The Topi, like the other lodges, is quite isolated in the bush. I would call it African veld. It is surrounded by a high wired fence to keep the lions out. We are on the edge of the Ishasha Rift, in Queen Elizabeth Park. We arrived at the lodge late after having been birding from a boat of the connector between Lakes Albert and Edward, part of the Nile system.

We spent the next day birding from the lodge in our usual way. Out with the early light, late breakfast, birding around the lodge, out before dinner, dinner and bed. The meals were on an elevated platform some 25 m or so from the lodge so we had our watching stuff with us. The evening platform different from the morning one. We always eat outside to the songs of the veldt, crickets and frogs at night birds in the morning.

Our final morning we were back down to the Nile to drive the safari roads of the park. This was the best part of the day for me as the golden light helped me find the birds easier and the photos were a little better. Once birding waned we headed off again. This time to the higher jungle country in the southwest.

Birding the jungle is not as satisfying for me. The birds are harder to find buried in the foliage, but Tony always seems to find some and can sometimes help me find them in my camera.

Jan 20, Bwindi Impenetrable NP… Gorilla watching.

We spent the night in a very basic lodge with only sporadic power, but good service. I was still hobbling badly from my fall 7 days ago, and my cough particularly at night was not allowing much rest. We were at 2400 m; the views on the drive in, climbing hour after hour on the steep mangled roads, did not promise easy walking. The roads, near the end, tended to run along ridges with severely steep jungle covered slopes each side of the road.

We had our orientation and were offered a porter. I was taking a lighter camera setup than I use for birding and two water bottles in a jacket pocket so I didn’t hire a porter. As soon as the steep downhill on indistinct trail started I began to fall behind. With one bad knee I had to lower myself always on my left leg. The right one kind of led the way. I tried to keep up, but rushing led to being tripped up by the vines and an awful struggle to get up. Soon an armed guard was assigned to help. He would hold my hand and helped lower me from one poor foothold to the next. I was still going down one leg at a time and so we were slow.

When we got to a bottom, only apparent by somewhat level footing, the guards found the gorilla group we had been assigned to watch. They were spread out in the deep fern ground cover.

As our group of about a dozen clients and guards moved cumbrously among the gorillas they would tolerate us for a while and then rush off to get some more peace. One silverback broke out of the bush and rushed by in front of me. There was at least one baby, perhaps more. They seemed kind of mournful to me, but they have to put up with this half hour incursion only once a day, if that can be any consolation.

It was a wonderful experience, although I feel badly for taking advantage of their threatened nature. It would be nice if we could leave these peaceful creatures alone, but I guess without our tourist dollars they would be extinct.

I crawled back up the approximate route we came down on. I was slightly better, but still climbing on only one leg dragging the other, and my poor conditioning meant that I could only go up in about 30 m segments before a minute rest was needed.

My guard Constantino, was my saviour. There is little doubt in my mind that I should not have taken on this challenge with my problems. It is humbling to be the poorest walker in a group.

The whole thing took a bit over three hours, much too rushed. We then began the long drive on rough roads back into the somewhat lower world. We spent the night in an old colonial Hotel, The White Horse Inn, in Kibale, and then birded our way back to Entebbe with yet another lovely lodge stay at Rwakobo Rock.

This morning, from our Tilapia Lodge we did what was supposed to be our first day’s tour to Mabamba Swamp to see the improbable Shoebill Stork. We said goodbye to Tony and Ronnie who had become such good travel companions. We have what will be our first time to relax and do nothing for a little over 24 hours before we head to the bus station and on to Kenya.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged africa, birds, nature, travel, wildlife | 1 Comment

East Africa

Posted on January 5, 2025 by kenmyhre

Once again I have neglected this blog. It is almost two years since my birding/biking trip to Japan/ Taiwan and my last entries. Although my travels are getting less adventurous I am still getting around. In the last two years I have been on trips in North America, often in search of new birds, and one trip with family to Norway and Sweden where I did get to see Muskox and some iconic birds. These experiences will remain un-reported.

What brings me back to my blog is another trip, a bit more adventurous, with Rich King. Tomorrow we will embark on a possibly painful four flight trip to Entebbe, Uganda. For seven weeks we plan on travelling through parts of East Africa. We have birding guides in Uganda and Ethiopia and will make our own way through parts of Kenya and Tanzania.

This is old stomping grounds for Rich but all new for me. As an early adventure reader I was enthralled with the experiences of Livingston, Stanley, Speke others. The romantic writing of Rider Haggard (King Solomon’s Mines), John Buchan and later Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen) and Beryl Markham, further created a desire to experience the “Heart of Africa”. Strangely that has not happened before now. I was in North Africa in the early 60’s and four times to southern Africa since 1985. Better late than never. If I had gone earlier it would certainly have been different than the trip we have planned, but I fully expect that you can still create adventure in your 80s.

I will make an effort to get some posts and photos out, but if they are slow in coming it means the adventure is too engrossing.

Onto Uganda

Posted in Birds and Animals, East Africa, Ethiopia, Kenja, Tanzania, Uganda, Uncategorized | Tagged African Safari, Birding, birds, nature, travel, wildlife | Leave a comment

Taipei

Posted on March 31, 2023 by kenmyhre

I am back in Calgary now so one more post will finish off my Japan/Taiwan trip. Picking up from Ruifang, I had one last biking day. Ostensibly I would have a nice gentle ride down the Keelung River for about 50 km from Ruifang to Taipei mostly on bike trails. In reality the river is very serpentine, the bike trails don’t really start until Taipei and the road crosses over some significant ridges which means the climbing and traffic were by no means finished with me. I tried twice to connect onto bike trails, both resulted in nice rides along the river but both just stopped and I had to retrace back to the road again. When I finally did connect with the trails within the city it was indeed lovely, with no end of people out enjoying all sorts of activities in the broad river valley which has been converted into one park after another, many with playing fields. I had about 12 kms of this relaxed riding to get to my hotel and the stuff I had left behind. I returned my bike that afternoon, leaving 6 nights, 5 days to get to know Taipei.

The gal who checked out my bike on return worked with me for about a half-an-hour to connect to YouBike the Taiwan street bike rental network and then walked me a block to a rack of bikes to ensure that I could get a bike. You wave your cell phone, now loaded with the appropriate app, over the bike you want, recite some Buddhist incantations, the bike jumps out of the rack and off you go. When you get to your destination you find a rack, shove the bike into the dock and a charge appears in VISA. I only used it four times, the longest for about 30 minutes each way to the Palace Museum. My total charge was less than $2.

I went to two museums. The Museum of Modern Art was way too modern for me, but I enjoyed the Palace Museum. It is said that it has the largest collection of Chinese art in the world. Calligraphy, Jade and Wood Carving, Intricate wood boxes, are some of the things that I am interested in. One famous piece is the jade Meat-shaped Stone, which does look more like a piece of meat than stone. There was an exhibition from the Vatican Library which parallels in time collections from Chinese libraries, both numbering in the millions going back over 1000 years. I was amazed at the number of pieces (millions) of both and how far back in time some come from.

A high percentage of the museum’s collection came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (KMT) government, army, and many people in the time around 1949. I will leave this history and the current situation to the readers who likely are better informed than I am. At no time in my brief visit to Taiwan did I get any indication that people are concerned about the big red cousin, but of course that means nothing.

One day, in part to try out the metro system, I went to Da’an Park with my big lens. It is one of the many good birding places around Taipei. Going early is always the thing to do when birding. Of course that is also when Chinese people hit the parks for their activities. I always enjoy checking out these activities but it does mean that there are fewer birds. The water birds do not seem to mind the crowds and so I got some good shots of herons and egrets. A first for me was seeing cattle egrets during breeding season. Normally they are a small completely white egret, but they have a lovely buff colour during breeding season. The fierce closeup is the egret concentrating on catching a fish.

But mainly I walked the streets of Taipei. I had hotels in two different parts of the city and I wandered each day looking for things to see. I was on the lookout for different foods to try or an interesting coffee shop. I found one good second hand book store with a few English language books. There are enough foreign people in Taipei that my different appearance didn’t draw much attention, and so I could enjoy the activity on the streets without disrupting things. A few days I carried a camera and I include a few shots from the streets.

It is hard doing interesting street photography; ideally it is planned out carefully and you take time to get the right action. I don’t think I am diligent enough to get good shots but Ill include a few anyway. I like the shot from inside a shrine looking out onto the street. It captures carvings from centuries ago when horses were king, contrasting with motorbikes the king of the streets today.

My favourite shot is the old man crossing a market street that I walked many times. This shot was done early, before the vendors flowed into the street leaving only a narrow people corridor. Black and white seemed to suit the scene by muting the cacophony that colour brings to these sorts of street scenes. Compare it to the night market scene, which seems frantic in comparison.

So that is it for another trip. My prime objective was to see cranes in Japan. I now have photos of seven of the world’s fifteen species of cranes.

Will I go to look for more? Possibly … Probably…

I particularly enjoyed spending some days with the cranes; observing them being fed, flying in and out, dancing, socializing, courting, squabbling. I would love to repeat this with other crane species. It would mean I would have to go back to Australia, South Africa, India or China. In visiting these places in the past I was often there at the wrong time, but most often did not make the effort to find the cranes that are there, largely because they were not of specific interest at the time. Or I might have to go to Bhutan or central Africa, where I haven’t been. Wouldn’t that be too bad. I have a little knowledge now of where to find these birds and I will be watching and waiting for the stars to line up.

I will certainly be looking for some sort of birding adventure soon, cranes or not. And I could also do some more biking. While I have lost some of my biking mojo, Taiwan has shown me that I can still get out there. But no decisions have yet been made on longer trips. Lots of short ones coming…

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On up the East Side of Taiwan

Posted on March 11, 2023 by kenmyhre

A few shots from my first week

I left you in Tainan on March 3^rd. I was pretty beat up, but I had had an easy and enjoyable day birding and cycling in Tainan. A big part of the rejuvenation comes from spending two nights in one hotel and not cycling with a full load during the off day. Also, in bigger cities it is easier to find a variety of places to eat, and so that lends itself to rejuvenation.

The second morning in Tainan I had two breakfast sandwiches and hot coffee from the same place I had found the first day. This unpretentious place was jumping, but then it closes for business at 10:00; a perk of being so popular I guess. I pushed my bike over to the station and bought a ticket for Kaosiung about 50 km down the road. It was definitely ridable but my legs told me that they wanted another easy day. This time the train was packed, and I stood holding my bike the whole way. It is Saturday, rooms were tougher to find and I think many people, particularly the young ones, pay the few TWD to get to a different town, possibly even for the day. My hotel let me in early, and I headed off on my bike. Kaosiung I think, might be the biggest city on the west coast. I rode down to the harbour area, took some pictures of the fancy architecture and then wound my way back through some small streets, one of my favorite city activities when I have a good bike. Another good city type meal and early to bed, as usual.

The hotel had a great breakfast; unfortunately most places I am staying do not provide breakfast. It was Sunday as I left the hotel at 7:30 hoping for some respite from the big city traffic. It was not to be, but at least the navigation was easy. Most of my day I would be following the cycle route 1 on good bike trails alongside the main highway south as it wound through this never-ending city. My target for the day was a train station about 60 km down the way and I hoped to arrive before 2:00.

Well into the day my progress was good enough that I could make a side-trip. My two easy days did their job, I felt stronger, so I headed off looking for Qifeng Wetlands Park. As soon as I left the main highway the tension seeped away. I am doing well riding on these well-defined bike routes but the continuous traffic and in particularly the frequent annoyingly long red lights are great to get away from.

The ride to the park was just as nice as the park itself. In the park I even pulled out my big lens for a few birds that are not new on this trip but the setting was nice. There were even a couple other bird photographers at work. Other that having to rejoin the highway for a large bridge I was able to stay away from the main highway ultimately finding a back way into Fanglian Station, which marks the southward extent of the train tracks on the west side of Taiwan. I bought a ticket that would take me across the mountains to the east side of the island.

I disembarked at Taitong where I would spend the night. The east side of the island has a completely different vibe than the west. Only two small cities, Taitong one of them. From my perspective a big difference is the riding; it is hilly. I began working on a train/bike strategy that would give me some riding with an avoidance of the big hills. I do not have much confidence in my ability to ride hills. One of the big climbs is right out of Taitong, so I planned to take the train two stations along, about $2 for me and my bike, saving 25 km of climbing. I wanted to visit Taitiong so I spent most of the day riding into the main part of town, primarily to a park called Forest Park. I took the train to Luye in the afternoon.

My first major goof of the trip showed itself when I arrived at my hotel. I use my visa to book rooms but pay in cash when I arrive. No wallet. For the next 45 minutes there was much teeth gnashing and phone translator conversation going on. Finally the owner connected with the service desk at the train station in Taitong and they had my wallet complete with all the cash that I had just taken out, about $1,000. The hotel owners had a taxi friend that drove me the 25 k down to the station and back, charging me about $20, much less than I offered. This is just one of the many examples of honesty and kindness of the Taiwanese that I have experienced.

For the next two days I rode the highlands along the inland highway #9. I left early, about 7:30, and rode steadily until around 12 to 1:00, by which time I had done first 65 km and then 80km and was surprisingly at my destination. The hills were gentle on me. I had one 7% hill and many long ones at 4-5%. But it was pretty cool in the morning and I was certainly much stronger now. When I arrived at my destination I had my major meal of the day and got on the train for another 25 km. I thought about just riding that extra leg the second day, but opted to keep from taxing all of my reserves.

March 7, Taroko Gorge

So, this has brought me to Xincheng, 25 km north of Hualien, and possibly my nicest guesthouse of the trip. After a great breakfast I left, without panniers, at 7:30 heading to Taroko Gorge, possibly Taiwan’s major natural attraction.

It took close to half an hour to work my way through the two small ocean front villages at the foot of the gorge and into the climb. Taiwanese, and sometimes their occupiers like the Japanese, have made many attempts to carve passages through the gorge. The current version is called Highway #8 and is the site for at least one major cycling event: KOM (King of the Mountain) where cyclist come to test themselves against the 105 km climb to the summit at 3075 m.

I am not doing that. I am cycling up the first 15 or so km to have a look at some of the dramatic parts of the gorge and to see some of the early efforts to build passage through the gorge. My legs worked pretty well but I am glad that I started early, as it heats up fast. The steepest parts that I hit probably were in the 10-12% range, but most of the time I was not working too hard.

I stopped at three places to view and walk parts of the original, or at least earlier versions of the passage. The river has been cutting its path through the marble for 100 million years. Taroko, and the efforts to build passage through it certainly lived up to its billing.

I was back down to my little guesthouse by noon to pick up my panniers and catch my last train ride, this time to Yilan. In this case it is recommended that the leg of the journey north from Taroko be avoided because the road is narrow, without bike lanes and subject to rock fall.

March 10, to Ruifan

This will be my last hard day, and it proved harder than I had expected. In the round Taiwan bike trip one version has you riding over the mountains to Taipei from Yilan, but as I have a few extra days on my bike rental I am riding around the northern tip of the island to Ruifang where I will spend two nights before what is hopefully an easy ride into Taipei to finish my cycling.

This day was possibly the most beautiful part of my ride but only about 30% had the lovely bike lanes or paths that I have become used to. The road hugs the coast the whole way and like many coastal highways it is quite rolling with some of the climbs quite long and steep. On the longest of these I did jam my chain again. I was helped this time by three young heavily laden walkers who seemed to know a lot about bikes. A few of these climbs would then turn into a tunnel that would take me through a hill into a different bay.

A light headwind slowed me a bit but mostly I did very well stopping four or five times for water or convenience store refreshments. What made the day very hard was the constant large truck traffic. For some reason a large number of trucks rattle and bang as the whip by my elbow and they always seem to travel in groups of five or six. Of course they catch me as I am huffing and puffing up-hill as well. Very stressful.

To get into Ruifang I left the coast highway and in 3km climbed about 100 m through a couple of tunnels that put me in town on the Keelung river that I am expecting to follow gently downhill into Taipei.

It might be obvious that I am riding much better than I indicated in my first post. That has more benefits than just the comfort on the road. I have more energy off the bike and as such I think I am taking a few more photos and getting to know Taiwanese food a bit better. I still primarily use the convenience stores along the road while biking, but when stopped I have begun to find some other places to sample the wonderful food. Onto a few more days in Taipei

Posted in Birds and Animals, cycling, Taiwan | 5 Comments

Taiwan

Posted on March 3, 2023 by kenmyhre

Sorry, no photos this time

My transition from Japan to Taiwan went well. Haneda Airport in Tokyo got me onto my plane without any people help, all electronic, in minutes. A four hour flight landed me in Taipei around 2:00 pm. I had to get Taiwan Dollars (TWD), a sim card, and then to my hotel. I had an interesting exchange with the Information Centre. I assumed I was landing at the Taipei International Airport which is about 50 km out. I didn’t want to pay a taxi to get in so I was trying to get onto a shuttle bus that would take me to the Taipei Main station where I would then get a taxi the rest of the way. What I didn’t realize was that I had landed at the old Songshan Airport in northern Taipei, and the IC people couldn’t figure out why I wanted a bus to the town centre and then take a taxi back north to my hotel. I finally gave up and just got a taxi and realized as he started driving and I checked into Google Maps that the hotel is closer to the airport than the centre of town. Unfortunately when I leave Taiwan it will be from the new airport.

My first night in Taipei I walked around the Shilin Night Market and ate street food, and savoured the dramatic change from Japan. I got my bike the next day and rode around getting used to it and plotting my route out of town. The bike is a bit smaller than my bikes, it also uses older shifters. My panniers are a bit awkward, no handle bar bag, no mirror. So it is taking some getting used to. But it is a good old style bike.

The morning I left I knew I was going to be in for a rough day. Bike familiarization, many hills, much navigation, poor conditioning, too far. The bike paths through Taipei are great and I found my way onto them and on into the hills fine. There was good signage even though there are a multitude of bike paths, for the first 30 km. Once the trails ended I hit the first long climb on a moderately busy road. There is almost always a good wide pedal/motor bike path so the traffic has never been an issue. I would say the roads/paths for biking here are as good as I have experienced.

The problem is that as soon as I hit the hills my strength disappeared. I had to walk my bike a bit towards the top of my first not very long climb. And then I found a bike path again. I am using Google maps for my route finding and it is great. But the path soon stopped and I had to backtrack and follow a road for a while until I got back on. And then I was into an area with hundreds of people using the trail. Apparently it is a holiday and this is a particularly attractive place not far from Taipei. As I was just about to hit a steep climb some other bikers came around the bend as I was shifting gears. I panicked and jammed the chain and fell off my bike. A few scrapes but the issue was the jammed chain. I had to pull it out from between two gears and I just could not do it. I was so tired that I am sure I wasn’t as effective as I could have been. Finally an older couple stopped and asked if they could help. The man went and got some better tools and some work gloves. It took almost two hours to get moving again.

Because of the people and the hills I biked and walked for another hour before I got off of the trail and onto the roads again. I jammed my chain twice more, but not as badly. Finally I had a lovely 45 minute downhill on a quiet road through rice paddies, but I was still not close enough to my destination to be able to enjoy it much. I had not made a reservation and the daylight was fading fast. I stopped a couple times searching on google for a hotel and trying to ask. One guy suggested heading for a train station that was close by and that worked. I stumbled into a great hotel not on any of my maps. 10 hours to go 80 km, in incredibly bad form. Not a good day for my self-esteem nor my confidence. I had not stopped all day. This was a very scenic day and I knew that I had to keep pushing or I would not have made it.

The next day was the beginning of what has been pretty flat riding since. My body felt destroyed; everything hurt and when I walked it felt like my legs would collapse. I booked a place 50 km away and left about 9:30. It did not take long to clear the city and begin riding along the west side of Taiwan heading basically south. Much of the way I have been following Cycle Route 1, and it is well marked. Sometimes there is a nice bike route away from the highway, but usually it is a wide lane marked for bikes. When I have left the marked route google has also given me some nice quiet rides. The next two days I started earlier, at least by 8:00 and did 80 km by about 2:30, by which time I am bagged. I do alright until about 11:30 and then the heat contributes to my general fatigue, and I begin needing more refreshment stops. I think I am getting stronger, but without the hills I can’t really say. My legs are always stiff and sore when I stop for a while. While pedaling on the flat they feel fine.

My accommodations have been good. I have been paying $Cdn 40-75 a night. I usually get close to where I want to stop and then use booking.com to choose and find a place. Most of the food I have eaten so far has been from convenience stores. This is a big thing in both Japan and Taiwan. Family Mart and 7/11 are common in both places. In Japan Lawson’s might be the biggest. There ae other smaller chains as well. They are more than convenience stores. They are often open 24 hrs, they have good coffee, hot food and packaged food they will heat for you. Most have tables to sit at. It is also where I get my money; they have ATMs. Without these chains I am not sure how I would get on. Traditional roadside eateries like I used when I was in China seem hard to find.

Yesterday, after having done my 80 km, and thinking about how I would pass the time until 3:00 which is the earliest you can get into a hotel or a guest house I passed the train station in the town I had just got to. I hadn’t looked for a place to stay yet, and I really would rather have been 50 km down the road at Tainan where I had planned on spending a day birding. I slipped into the station to see what would be involved to get my bike on a train. Fifteen minutes later we were on the way to Tainan. It cost me less than $10 Cdn.

While on the train I booked a place beside the train station. The next morning I was out a little after 6:00 in Tainan Park looking for birds. The first thing I saw were 100s of old people, singly and in small groups, doing their activity. The range of activity includes tai chi type stuff, hard running and exercise, dance, ambling along paths, singing… I was right, this is more China than Japan, my first notion when I arrived in Taipei. I was the only bird photographer. They probably wondered why I was working so hard to capture the birds they see in the hundreds every day. But the Bulbuls and the Night-Herons I got are exotics for me.

After a slow breakfast and a second coffee I got on my bike and headed to the water front. I did a long river bank bike trail, crossed the mouth of the river as it flows into the ocean and found a few more birds in Jiang National Park. This took the better part of the day. I rode about 25 km and walked a small amount, hopefully it will do as a recovery day, but it was more than I had planned. My legs are still pretty stiff. I am thinking about taking the train another 50 km tomorrow to see if I can get some bounce back.

My troubles might seem to mean that I am not enjoying myself, until you understand that a prime reason for this biking part of my trip is to drive the recovery from two years of inactivity, and it sure is doing that. There is no doubt that I was in far worse shape than I expected and so the riding is just that little bit harder than I had hoped. But I am back on my bike in Asia, where I have spent so many good days over the years, I am having to work hard so almost all is good. The downside is the lack of birding that I have been able to do so far. The places I had hoped to bird haven’t panned out. Maybe that will change. Over half of the load I am dragging with me is camera equipment necessary for birds. Right now it has been mostly ballast which is something that I do not need.

All for now…

Posted in Birds and Animals, cycling, Taiwan | 5 Comments

Himeji and Tokyo

Posted on February 23, 2023 by kenmyhre

That’s it for Japan, at least until next time. From Nikko I took the train out of the mountains, through Tokyo, three Shinkansen hours south to Himeji, where it is warmer and no snow. I finally had nice views, at 130 kph, of Mt Fuji both going south and then on the return.

On my 2010 trip I visited Himeji on a Sunday during the height of Sakura. Thousands were out having Hanami, their cherry blossom celebration and possibly even more were in line to get into Japan’s most significant remaining castle. I remember walking for about three hours in a slowly moving line up through the perimeter walls into Himeji Castle, up the five or six flights to the top and then back down again, always in a line of people. It is a beautiful thing from every view and the interior, all wonderfully crafted woodwork, anxiously protected in numerous ways from fire that has caused the demise of many of these mediaeval masterpieces. I did the visit again. The grey winter day could not compete with my celebratory blossom filled first visit, but I could wander at will as there were a fraction of the people visiting.

It was pleasant spending a few days in Himeji, mostly walking the streets and eating. I am finally getting into a number of the small street restaurants, each offering a specialty of some sort. I never know what that specialty is, but I just point at a picture and the meal has always been great. I am paying about $8-12 and usually have a good sized bowl of rice or noodles with vegetable a meat or fish done in a tasty way. This will often be accompanied by a separate bowl of miso soup, always with some differentiating taste. If I was fussier I could be using my translator to ask about the ingredients before I order, but they have all been so good that I haven’t bothered.

After three nights in Himeji I moved on to Tokyo where I booked into a hotel a few minutes by metro from the Haneda Airport where I will be flying from. I am staying for four nights. Getting to the hotel was the challenge. I arrived by Shinkansen getting off at Shinagawa, one of the many major Japanese Railway stations in Tokyo. My other experiences, always involving a train transfer had been at Tokyo Station. At these stations there are many lines intersecting at up to three levels. Signage is great, but you have to concentrate and be careful because there are many people levels, kilometers of connecting passages and thousands of people. In transferring through Tokyo station I usually had about 15 minutes to find my ongoing platform. It was usually plenty, but I didn’t make any mistakes either. This time I was transferring onto the metro system. Much more complicated.

I found my way out of the JR system and onto the correct metro line but then made one screw-up. On each metro line not all trains stop at all stations, so at first I overshot and had to find my way back to the stop I needed. The next day on my wanderings I spent a little longer to figure out how my metro line worked. On that day I went to the Nikon Museum, which just happened to be in the Shinagawa area, which is one of the dozens of cities that makes up Tokyo which, at 31 million, is by some measures the world’s largest city.

On my second full day in part to minimize transportation complexity I again went back to Shinagawa Station. I found my way back onto the JR system as it was the last day of my JR Pass, and went to Ueno Park, which is where a number of the important museums are. I spent much of the day in a family of three museums under the umbrella of the Tokyo National Museum. I browsed through Japanese and Asian history as represented by the over 100,000 items cataloged in these museums. There was also attention paid to early Japanese Arts and Crafts. My day wandering the Shinagawa area was beset by a cold wind that whistled through the cavernous streets lined with high-rises. Ueno Park was much nicer as the day was sunny with little wind and the park had drawn many people, including a baseball team having a practice. Nice day.

My final day was spent in the Haneda area, where my hotel is. I basically walked the small streets. I was doing a major wash so after two hours I went back to the hotel and emptied the machine that both washed and dried my clothes. Back out in the neighborhood my final Japanese experience was to indulge in one of my travel treats: I had a two hour haircut and shave. My hair was washed before and after the cut. My face was heated with a number of hot wet washrags and I was massaged from the top of my head down to my shoulders. My barber was an elderly woman whose father had started the business. Her husband and middle-aged son were both working on customers as well. And her English was pretty good. Great treat.

My eating experience in Tokyo followed that of Himeji. Each day at least once, but sometimes twice I went into a little eatery. I was sometimes the only one, but there were never more than a dozen other customers. All of my meals were good. I had a reasonable breakfast each morning at my hotel so there was no reason to eat more than one other meal, but I began ordering small portions so that I could go to another place that day.

I am leaving Tokyo without doing much formal touristing by design. I think that I get more pleasure out of walking the quiet streets and sitting in the simple parks than I do visiting prime tourist sites. I had also been to some of these in 2010 when I had a bike and was much more mobile. Tokyo at night is a great attraction for the younger visitors, but is of little interest for me, and so that further simplifies things.

This has been a very different trip for me than my 2010 cycle trip or my 2018 walking trip. Travelling by train, even in the wonders that are the Shinkansen, is not as attractive to me, but it has added an experience that was good as well. It sure is an efficient and pleasant way of getting around.

Tomorrow I’m off to Taiwan. I am expecting a very different kind of place, but mostly I am anxious to see how I do on a rented bike. Until then…

Posted in Himeji Castle, Japan, Tokyo | 1 Comment

Sapporo and Nikko

Posted on February 17, 2023 by kenmyhre

After spending five nights around Kushiro, on the east coast of Hokkaido, including the night in Rausu, it was time to move on. I had now seen the birds I had come to Japan to see and I had two weeks to visit a few other places. I decided I had to go to Sapporo, while on Hokkaido.

I walked on mostly icey sidewalks about six blocks to Kushiro Station, expecting to have time for breakfast but was put on a train leaving immediately. I had booked in for three nights at a pretty high-end hotel in Sapporo. I was hitting the last few days of their Snow Festival, so I was paying about $400 for the three nights, much more than I have been paying. I arrived at the main Sapporo Station about 11:30, ending up in a Mr Donuts for a surprisingly nice soup, coffee and two donuts. I was thinking about buying day passes on the subway but would leave that for the two full days in town.

I figured out how to use the subway, three stops to my hotel, Sapporo Park Hotel. I came up out of the subway into a nice park and walked around a bit until Google got me to the hotel entrance. They let me into my room early. My cough had persisted and so my only interest was to get warm and lay down. The hotel was not providing breakfast which annoyed me, forgetting that it was still loads cheaper than anywhere else. I hunkered down trying to keep warm. About 7:00 I went down to the lobby not really expecting a simple restaurant or even a kiosk with anything to eat. I wasn’t up to going out yet. At a souvenir type kiosk I bought some fancy snacks and a beer which got me to sleep.

In the morning I dressed with everything I have and headed out sometime around 9:00. I was using my monopod expecting even more packed snow and ice on the sidewalks than in Kushiro. A couple of blocks on I came to the first Ice Sculptures on a boulevard down the middle of the busy street. It went on for a three or four blocks. I had pancakes and coffee in McD, still finding it hard to pick out restaurants that are open.

In a pedestrian mall that also went on for a number of blocks I found an optometrist and bought clip-on sunglasses to fight the intense glare. Even with a grey day my pupils were closing with the snow everywhere. The beige glasses meant I could see a little definition in the snowy parts of the walk. More and more as I got closer into the centre of Sapporo the sidewalks and often a one metre band along the road were heated and clear of ice. Still the snow/icy parts were often a step up or down. I was glad I had my stick.

Wearing my glasses more now as the clip-ons made the glare less intense I took to wearing my mask less often, as the mask clouds my glasses in the cold temperature. There is close to universal mask use here unless people are eating or drinking. But no one has every indicated concern when I do not have one on, even when I am hacking away trying to cover my face.

A couple more blocks and I was into one of the Festival’s Ice sculpture areas, although now I would call it more packed snow carving. There were a number of building size pieces, very professionally done and dozens of car sized pieces, some more amateur like. I think many of these may be in competition for awards. Tomorrow is the last day of the Sapporo Snow Festival. Many families were out enjoying activities and buying souvenirs offered at many kiosks along the way.

Gradually I started making my way back not following the same route. I ended up farther east and had to use Google to help me. I never was tempted to go looking for something else to do. I guess I was starting to feel a bit better. Near my hotel I found a funny little café filled with books and kitsch. It was run by an old woman who took about half an hour to make coffee for me. While there an elderly man and then a woman came in and had similarly laboriously prepared meals. I thought that I should come back when I was ready to eat. I never did.

I did come out again that night looking for a meal and ended up in a place that specialized in barbecued offal. I had jumbo shrimps and veggies that I did on a hibachi and filled up with rice.

My second day in Sapporo, now Saturday was similar. I headed out following my route yesterday. I went into a Mr Donut hoping for the same soup I had when I arrived, but I guess it was too early, so my breakfast was coffee and donuts. In the big snow sculpture area there were now thousands of people, mostly young families enjoying the snow. Many of the little sculptures were small slides for the very little ones to play on.

I now noticed more attention to the snow and ice conditions. Obviously the young people just hustled on as if there was no problem. But some older people with canes had spikes attached and those in wheel chairs had skis under the front small wheels. I also saw a child’s strider with skis attached under the wheels. This is big snow country.

At noon there were lineups at many restaurants. I ended up in a Yashino, a chain I had used before. I just pointed at something and it was great and reasonable. Back in my hotel I worked on my Steller’s photos a bit and tried to make bookings for down the road. The best I could do was three more nights, including two in Nikko. Getting there, I know will be more complicated that I have had it so far. I also booked for hotel breakfast, as I plan on leaving Sapporo early afternoon and will have time in the morning. I have been unsuccessful finding minshuku type accommodation on booking sites. My Nikko place will require at least one non-JR train and quite a bit of walking. That’s ok, but my spots of interest are all in snowy areas and I do not handle the icy sidewalks with as much alacrity as the agile Japanese of all ages.

My morning was spent at the hotel buffet breakfast rather than the set Japanese restaurant, which I will have in Nikko. I took the 1:27 train back to the Hakodate Shinkansen station that confused me when I first got to Hokkaido and cost me a $60 taxi ride into central Hakodate. This leg is to get me to the fast trains down into Honshu where I will spend the rest of my time. There is also a very inexpensive hotel at the station. I need to catch up a bit after my Sapporo splurge.

Onto Honshu.

I got onto the Tokyo Shinkasen from Hakodate-Hokuto at 6:30, too early for the free hotel breakfast. This train goes under the ocean passage between Hokkaido and Honshu the largest and main Island in Japan. I never noticed the passage as I worked on my compute, finally writing a bit about what was happening here. Up until now it has all been about bird photography and sharing those photos. The trains on Hokkaido have been difficult to do computer work because of the tracks. The cars are nice but the rails are still clackity-clack type. On the shinkansen the clackity-clack is gone and the ride is silky smooth.

Nikko

In 2010 when I was cycling south towards Tokyo Nikko was to be my last major place to spend some time, but it was completely booked. It has long been an important holiday spot for Japanese. It is important both for its nature and for its history. I had booked two nights in the Nikko area on the edge of Nikko National Park near a place called Kawaji Onsen, in large part because the hotel had an onsen and provided breakfast and dinner.

My route involved a non-Shinkansen JR train for about half-an hour, a twenty minute walk to a non-JR station and then two trains and about two hours waiting to get about 50 km into the mountains. It became more and more obvious that I had not picked out my spot very well. Off the last train I walked on icy roads through a mostly deserted little town to get to a high rise hotel set amongst other places of the same sort. There was lots of nature around but not much history and no temples, which fill the Nikko I had read about. One of the dozen hotel workers spent some time going over the Japanese only sheet I was given. He was explaining, not that I understood much at this time, onsen times and places and meal times and places and processses. I found my way to my room; no windows as I laterdetermined the room was actually below ground. I headed out and found my way to the men’s 12th floor onsen. There was also a women’s and a mixed one. There were two large pools, washing stations for about 20 people, and a separate cooling down area. The hot water immersion was part of what I hoped would drive my cough away.

Breakfast and dinner each of the two days were in a big room with about a dozen tables of Japanese fare. I don’t think it would be called high end, but there was lots there that I enjoyed. In the evening there was beer and saki you could have as much as you liked. The hundred or so people who were also eating went back many times selecting their favourite items. On my full day in the area I walked around the little town and up a river for a while. I enjoyed the day because walking around this unpretentious area reminded me of my Shikoku Walk

I got back on the web and did a better job finding two more nights in the Nikko I wanted in the first place. I had a similar two hour three train ride to get out of these hills and then back up a parallel valley to the real town of Nikko, where I spent two more nights

Nikko reminds me in small ways of Banff. A mountain town with lots of tourist accommodation. At this time of year it is not fully operational because it is very cold. I took a long bus ride to the far end of the attractions, close to 1500 m high and all I could do there was have a bowl of ramen to try to warm up. Back down in Nikko it was a bit better, but the main attraction for me was the hot sento in my little ryokan. I did have my best meal so far in Japan in a small restaurant where I was the only client.

My full day in Nikko was a temple walk. My Garmin says I walked 19,000 steps. My hip agreed. The first temples were built here around 700 AD. My walking companion Kobo Daishi from Shikoku helped set up Shingon Buddhism here and is credited with naming the area Niiko which means daylight. The main character in establishing the importance of Nikko was the most important Japanese Shogun, Tokugawa. His mausoleum, Toshogu, is reputably the most ornate shrine in Japan. The area abounds with other temples and the forest in which they sit are wonderful walking, even when a cold wind whistles down the still snow and icey walks.

Nikko was also the fifth station on Basho’s Narrow Road to the North. It marked, at the time, the barrier between the settled world of Edo and the wild north. Basho was one of the inspirations for my first trip to Japan. I was happy to finally get to Nikko, even if it took a little trial and error.

Posted in Japan, Nikko, Pilgrimage, Sapporo, Snow Festival | 2 Comments

Steller’s Eagles

Posted on February 12, 2023 by kenmyhre

Still dark at 5:00 as I was picked up from Minshuku Marumi Shokuu taken 10 minutes to a small wood shack out of the brittle cold and asked for money; I paid. I was in Rausu, a small fishing village five bus hours further north and east from Kushiro. Drift ice flowed in overnight much closer to the harbour, that was good, not so far to go. I was struggling with a body wracking cough that made my ability to handle the small rocking boat even worse than my normal abysmal balance allowed for. The railing around the boat deck was covered in ice, but that was not my main issue; it was only mid-thigh high on me. I like my railings around chest high. We were given life-vests but as I was told on another water trip years ago ‘Don’t worry, if you fall in you aren’t coming out alive.’ I dove down into the small cabin and held on.

In all things your mind can really play games with you, but you try to persevere. Once the boat stopped and I saw the eagles rising in the morning sun my apprehension dissipated. I was here to see and photograph Steller’s Eagles and there they were. I headed out onto the deck to get to work.

Steller’s Eagles are by some measures the world’s largest eagles. They weigh up to 20 pounds and have wingspans up to 8.2 ft. I have read about them for years and they were a contributing factor in this trip. They are a fish and seabird eating raptor whose range is now down to the north east coast of Asia. Their primary breeding territory is the Kamchatka Peninsula. Some migrate in winter as far south as Hokkaido. Most do not migrate. There are about 4000 left, possibly 300 get to Hokkaido. My little group were privileged to watch about 20 of them, enticed by the fish thrown out a few at a time by one of our guides over the next two hours.

At first the rising sun was the spectacle and trying to get photos into the sun took a bit more skill than I have. A Japanese couple: he with a basic SLR and small zoom, she with a cell phone were snapping away into the sun. The other paying customer, an experienced Indian was alternating between three cameras, two with enormous lenses. We would all hope for the best. Possibly the most pronounced feature of the Steller’s is the prominent yellow beak.

The Steller’s were joined by a few White-Tailed Eagles, only slightly smaller, about the same size as our Bald Eagle. Note difference in bill size. Unlike the Steller’s they are fairly numerous across the top of Eurasia. There were also some Slaty-backed Gulls and some Large-billed Crows.

As the sun slowly rose, the harbour behind us began to show. The snowy mountains in the background and the drift-ice we were sitting in occasionally took my attention away from the birds. I was also now able to focus on a few flying shots as birds seemed to be coming and going all the time

It was all pretty frantic as this is a one-time shot, and any shots that I missed I would not be getting. It was too cold on the deck to do much checking the quality of my photos. I could only hope that my technique was solid enough that there would be some good pictures.

It was over all too soon. We headed into the harbour, I was bundled into a little car and taken back to my minshuku where breakfast was on the table waiting for me. I started eating and was told, sign language of course, that the bus would be stopping outside in 30 minutes. OK, and then that changed to 15 minutes and I would be driven to the bus station for the ride back to Kushiro. By 9:00 I was on my way back to Kushiro. The whole Rausu adventure lasted 16 hours. I had hoped also to find a little place where the Blakiston Fish-Owl turned up from time to time. I guess that turned out to be a no-go. I’m not sure if they were begin super supportive of what they assumed I wanted or if they just needed me out of there.

Oh well. This was my last Japan birding effort. Now I will, in the next two weeks, change gears a bit.

Posted in Birds and Animals, Japan | 4 Comments

Red-Crowned Cranes – Tancho

Posted on February 9, 2023 by kenmyhre

(Don’t forget to touch images you wish to look closer at)

As I approached my first Red-Crowned Crane viewing area I was initially disappointed. There were no other cars in the parking lot and I couldn’t see where the birds might be. I expected that the feeding time might have passed but I hoped to see some left over activity, like at Izumi. But then I walked around the corner and there they were. Only about twenty but resplendent. Tall, black neck, head and long skinny legs and most prominently the black bustle, almost unique in birds that I have seen. But most importantly they are snow white. The visage so in keeping with this wonderland of stark black leafless trees and deep snow that covers Hokkaido in winter. The red crown on top of the head is not at all prominent but is the eponymous feature that I worked hard to capture. While not as impressive as the mammoth number of birds in Izumi, the incredible beauty of the Red-Crowned Crane more than makes up for it. It is no wonder that it has so captured the imagination of the Japanese people. The black bustle comes from the black secondary wing feathers. Most white birds, when they have black accents, choose to have them at the end of the wing on the primaries. Look at the shots where the wings are extended, flying, dancing and squabbling and pay attention to the black secondaries.

I had arrived in Kushiro, on the Northeast coast of Hokkaido after two days of riding high speed trains, Shinkansen, from bottom to top of Japan. I spoke with the Information Centre staff about using public transportation or tour buses to get to the viewing areas, but I decided that having a car would be best for my purposes. My pickup time to get my car was 8:00 and it took 45 minutes to find my way to my first stop. Hence the reason I thought I would be late for feeding. In Izumi it would be all be said and done by this time. My first stop is called Tsurumidai Plain.

The situation with the Red-Crowned is quite different than on Kyushu with the Hooded and White-Naped. One hundred years ago Red-Crowned, like our Whooping Cranes, were down to between 20 and 30 individuals. They would migrate in winter down into Japan from the steppes of Russia and China to the fast disappearing wetlands. A few people started feeding them to stave off extinction. The wetlands around Kushiro are the largest remaining wetlands in Japan and they are now protected as part of Kushiro Shitsugen National Park. Over time the feeding program spread around the park to a number of locations and the Tanchou, as they are called here, quit migrating. About half of the world’s 3000 Red-Crowned still migrate from Siberia into China and North Korea and back for breeding. So the numbers here, around 1500, are far less than in Izumi, and they are not concentrated in one area.

As I was taking my first few shots at this first stop more Tanchou began arriving a few at a time. This gives the opportunity to get flying shots (BIF –Birds in Flight). BIF is not great at Tsurumidai because of trees and power lines, but it was fun trying. After about half an hour; more cars and a bus had brought many more people; now as many as the cranes we were all here to wonder at. And then a farmer came out from his barn and began throwing seed around by hand and the birds chased him around the field. Again very different than Izumi where feeding of 15,000 birds necessitated a different approach, but similar in that the birds knew when the food was coming.

There is some safety in having different migration paths or living environments. The other large white crane, the Siberian, also has about 3000 members left but because about 95% breed in Siberia and winter on Lake Poyang in China they are considered more at risk than the Red Crowned or even the Whooping Crane with less than 1000. Any environmental or climactic disaster could wipe them out.

I stayed at Tsurumidai until after most of the other birders had departed and I was able to get photos and video of the Tanchou squabbling and performing their courtship dance. This courtship dance shows wonderfully their athleticism in a graceful ballet involving leaping, chasing and leg and neck contortion.

I have inserted a video with some apprehension. Firstly I do a poor job of taking them and can’t edit them. They are also laborious to upload. The reason I have done so this time is that my efforts to describe the dance is pale with the video. I hope it works

Courting Dance

I drove down to the next site called Otawa Bridge, famous for getting atmospheric shots on a river. My shots here were of a few birds swimming in the river and a Whooper Swan. The next morning I was back earlier to get distant shots of birds on the river as the morning steam was still rising from the river. It got to about -12C at night while I was here, never getting above 0C during the day. As the whole time I was here the days were bright sunlight the dreamy fog filled shots were not to be.

The next stop was another feeding site, Tsurui-Ito Sanctuary, in the village of Tsurui. I also had lunch and stopped in at two potential places to stay. Everything is booked. Kushiro is a city and I would much rather stay where the birds are, but it is less than an hour’s drive. Keeping my itinerary open means that I am not always going to get ideal place to stay. The birds at Tsurui were less active so mostly I just enjoyed their beauty.

As afternoon progressed I went exploring in the always well-plowed back roads. I did see one Red-Crowned family of three birds in a field, but never did stumble on where they went when they left the feeding areas. My drive back to Kushiro took me on the gravel roads through the park. I was hoping to see some of the little deer which I did and some foxes which did not surface for me.

The next day, earlier, I repeated much of my first day, but then I headed west to the Akan International Crane Centre. This has more of a Nature Centre vibe to it with displays, videos and educational material. There were also about fifty birds in a field centered by a small pond. I enjoyed having my own vehicle to get me to these sites and just driving around the quiet country roads..

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments