Japan's Birds & Birdwatching

About this book

Japan may be the best bird country on earth that the world has not yet discovered — cranes dancing on snow fields, sea eagles crowding the drift ice of Shiretoko, jewel-coloured songbirds in thousand-year-old temple forests, and auklets streaming home at dusk to island colonies. This complete English guide presents 200 entries in one fixed, easy-to-use format: 160 birds — from the red-crowned crane and Steller's sea eagle to the white-eye in the plum blossom — each with its country, its place in Japanese history and culture, the practical craft of watching it well, and its seasons and protection. A fifth part turns to the watching culture itself: 40 sanctuaries, tidal flats, goose lakes, crane towns, festivals and customs, from the dawn goose flight at Izunuma to falconry, paper cranes and the laws that changed Japan's birds. Changeable facts — sanctuary rules, access, feeding programmes — are never asserted as settled: every entry closes by pointing you to the official source to confirm before you go. Plan a whole Japan trip by its birds, or simply learn why the Japanese have loved them for a thousand years.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.