If social distancing were already a thing of the past in 2021, I would be enjoying a little downtime after my annual Hokkaido tour winter wonderland. Although, in previous years, I’ve been staying even longer on Japan’s north island in Eastern Hokkaido to photograph the Whooper Swans and the snow ballerinas, the Red-crowned cranes, the white-tailed eagle, and others while on a Hokkaido Shiretoko Nature Cruise. When it comes to spotting the Steller’s Sea Eagles and White-tailed eagles, we mainly spot and photograph them in Hokkaido on pack ice until about mid-March. I always have clients who wish to extend their expedition to capture more of those once in a lifetime visual photogenic Hokkaido opportunities.
And just as the Steller’s Sea Eagle returns to the Kamchatka Peninsula after wintering in Hokkaido, the northern Sakhalin Island, or other destinations in coastal Russia, I, too, make my way back to either the YukiGuni Niigata satellite office to lead a private Niigata tour, or I take the longer excursion down to my main office and studio home in Kanagawa to enjoy some private time. I usually spend about a week camping at the base of Mt. Fuji, and I always put aside a few days on my return to lead a nature Japan birding tour for Japan’s early cherry blossoms, the Kawazu Sakura that bloom from mid-February to mid-March, and the warbling white eye, also known as the Japanese white eye or Mejiro (Zosterops japonicus) that rush to slurp and eat the sweet nectar of the sakura flower just as they bloom, as do the Brown Eared Bulbul and the common tree sparrow. As spring approaches, my eyes turn toward the season's main event, Japan’s bounteous species of cherry blossoms that bloom from late March in the South of Tokyo, and as they open to full bloom, I follow them to big-name places such as Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara, Kyushu, Niigata, Gifu, Nagano, Yamanashi, Fukushima, Akita, Aomori, and other prefectures as well. In these regions, I know the very best authentic Japan experience off-the-beaten-path with minimal tourists. This is an authentic Japan pilgrimage, and as the final cherry blossoms bloom about the first week of May in Hokkaido, the past few years I have been there to enjoy the festivities, and then I enjoy birding and whale watching on my annual spring Hokkaido Shiretoko Nature Cruise. And let's not forget the Ezo Sika Deer, the Shima Enaga, The Red-Crowned Cranes, The pygmy woodpecker, and other wildlife species endemic to Hokkaido. And we welcome dozens of other species who have landed or swum, and we wait to welcome those in migration to Japan and bid farewell to those departing Japan migrating to their summer homes, and I know I will see them again in 2022, 2023, and in the years to come such as the Steller's Sea Eagle during my annual winter wonderland Hokkaido wildlife birding tour expedition.