In February 2013 I visited Japan on a birdwatching tour organised by Tropical Birding - a most inappropriate company name for a tour in the depths of the Japanese winter. Apart from the days on the southern island of Kyushu all of the tour was in very cold and snowy conditions, especially so on the northern island of Hokkaido. Japan in winter offers three of the greatest spectacles in world birding - the huge gathering of cranes around Izumi-Arasaki on Kyushu, the dancing Red-crowned Cranes in the snow fields around Akan and the gathering of Steller's Sea Eagles on the sea ice off of Rausu. Not to mention the chance of seeing the largest owl in the world, the Blakiston's Fish Owl.
Many thanks to Keith Barnes of Tropical Birding for leading the tour and to his old boyhood friend Mark Lorenz, now a Tokyo resident, who joined us on the tour and did a great job of driving, interpreting, explaining the restaurant menus and ensuring that we behaved ourselves properly !