Wild Images, a division of Birdquest Ltd, specializes in wildlife photographic tours worldwide. Wild Images' exciting programme of tours includes both group and individual departures, and features such destinations as Hungary, Spitsbergen, Tanzania (Serengeti & Ngorongoro), India, Japan, Baja California, the Galapagos, Antarctica, South Georgia & The Falklands and the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand & Australia. Click on the picture above to visit the Wild Images website.
Ocean Adventures, a division of Birdquest Ltd, specializes in wildlife-orientated expedition cruises all over the world. As well as our Birdquest/Ocean Adventures group trips, there are many cruises available for individual bookings. These feature Spitsbergen, Greenland, Iceland, the Scottish Islands, Siberia (including the Kurils, Commanders, Kamchatka, Chukotka and the Bering Strait), Antarctica, South Georgia, the Falklands, the South Atlantic Islands, the Subantarctic Islands of New Zealand & Australia, the Western Pacific and many other venues. Click on the picture above to visit the Ocean Adventures website.
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JAPAN
Wednesday 20th May - Thursday 11th June 2009
Pete Morris
The superb Fairy Pitta (Pete Morris)
This was our fifth summer tour to Japan in recent years, a tour that focuses primarily on the breeding specialities and endemics of this remarkable country. For the second summer tour in succession we also included a visit to the lovely northern island of Hokkaido. Our overall total number of species recorded was 224, a respectable though unremarkable total. The quality of the species recorded was however remarkable! With numerous hops (both by boat and plane) between islands (we spent our time birding on seven different islands!), we achieved our objectives of finding the specialities admirably! Highlights during the first part of the tour included such mouth-watering species as Malayan Night Heron, Okinawa Rail, Copper Pheasant, Amami Woodcock, delightful Roseate Terns, Japanese Murrelet, Okinawa Woodpecker, several Ural Owls, Ryukyu Scops Owl, Ruddy Kingfisher, Fairy Pitta, Amami, Japanese and Izu Island Thrushes, Okinawa, Amami, Japanese and Siberian Blue Robins, Ijima’s, Japanese Swamp and Styan’s Grasshopper Warblers, Lidth’s Jay, and Japanese Yellow and Japanese Reed Buntings – to name but a few! On Hokkaido, we marvelled at the enormous Blakiston’s Fish Owls and were delighted to see breeding species such as Falcated Duck, elegant Japanese Cranes, Hazel Grouse, Spectacled Guillemot, Black Woodpecker, Siberian Rubythroat, Lanceolated, Middendorff’s and Gray’s Grasshopper Warblers, some fine Pine Grosbeaks and Grey Bunting. We were also thrilled to find a bubble-netting Northern Minke Whales and a couple of cute Sea-Otters, a species that was extinct in Japan for many years due to hunting for the fur trade And to cap it off, we sampled exquisite and impeccably presented Japanese food and stayed in some wonderful and homely accommodations throughout the archipelago.
Okinawa Rail - our bird of the trip once again! (Pete Morris)
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