While leading participants on my annual Hokkaido photography tour, we spot and photograph various different difference species of avian wildlife, the most popular are: Steller’s Sea Eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus), Blakiston’s Fish Owls (K. b. Blakistoni), Shima Enaga (Aegithalos caudatus iaponicus), White-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla), Great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major), Eurasian Jay Garrulus glandarius), Ural Owl (Strix Uralensis), Dusky Thrush (Turdus eunomus) among many other species.  When birding in the wetlands of Kushiro my participants and I are mainly spotting and photographing snow ballerinas, Hokkaido’s Red-crowned cranes (Grus japonensis). Like the Steller’s Sea Eagles, who migrate south to escape the polar vortex of Siberian winters, several dozen Red-crowned cranes winter over in Hokkaido.  But most flocks are endemic to Hokkaido, Japan.  The endemic flock and the migratory flock come together in the Kushiro Wetlands on Japan’s north island, but of all the waterways on Hokkaido, you may be asking why here?  The Red-crowned cranes prefer standing in shallow water that doesn’t go past their heels, not too deep or too shallow, and the Red-crowned cranes prefer clearings surrounding their roosting waterways reaching 50 - 100 feet to provide the cranes a good view for predators mainly the Hokkaido red fox Vulpes vulpes schrencki).  The areas where the Red-crowned Cranes roost also produce some amazing landscapes with the densely-wooded oak forests that border the area, almost providing a natural enclosure for the Red-crowned Cranes to settle in and refresh after a long day of foraging.