Hokkaido, Japan
October 2025
This year had a consistent theme of friends moving to amazing places, creating great opportunities for me to visit (and go birding in new locations). This trip centered around the oceanside city of Kushiro, which to my excitement was home to red-crowned cranes, sika deer, and shima-enaga (long-tailed bushtits). After a brief layover in Sapporo, one of my first stops was the Kushiro Marsh, the largest marshland in Japan.
Driving north from Kushiro, we headed to the other side of the coastline to see the Ubaranai glasswort community, a vibrant red carpet that rolls across the wetland in early fall. Glasswort is a type of coastal succulent, which thrives in salt marshes and muddy beaches.
Not all of time could be spent at sea level, we joined my friend's cohort of teaching students from Hokkaido University for a hike around Lake Mashū. Not photographed was the white-tailed eagle soaring around us once we reached the summit.
While the birds caught my eye most of the time, I couldn't overlook the red foxes darting across the roads or the large sika deer that often blocked the path through the woods.
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