Gray Heron, Hokkaido – wildlife notes

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on August 4, 2018
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Gray Heron, (aosagi), Abishiri campground, Hokkaido, Japan.

One of the reasons we chose Hokkaido for our first bicycle trek were the reports that wildlife viewing on this northern Japanese island can be quite good. We’ve not been disappointed. Almost every morning we’ve woken to the songs and calls of birds, and our rides this summer have taken us through mile upon mile of gently rolling farmland, forested hills, river valleys and along coastlines. To date we’ve identified over 60 species of birds and have encountered bears, deer, foxes, mink, seals, porpoises and small whales. Some of the highlights have included:

  • 9 Brown Bears
  • over 20 Red Foxes
  • Dozens of Ezo Deer
  • 32 Red-crowned Cranes
  • Over 20 White-tailed Eagles
  • 2 Blakiston’s Fish Owls (and nighttime voices of other species of owls)
  • the world’s largest breeding colony of Rhinoceros Auklets
  • 3 species of cuckoo
  • 4 species of woodpecker
  • 2 species of snakes
  • Ezo Red Squirrels (and Siberian Chipmunks)
  • Peregrine Falcons
  • Dall’s Porpoises
  • over 100 seals
  • more butterflies and moths – and more different kinds of butterflies and moths – than we’ve ever before seen anywhere

Wildflower viewing as well has been fantastic. When we return to Alaska, we’ll post more detailed articles about Hokkaido wildlife.

Thick-billed Crow’s Lucky Day

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on July 28, 2018
Posted in: Hokkaido bicycle trek. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

Got ‘em!

A few days ago we were in Rausu, Hokkaido at a bed and breakfast where Blakiston’s Fish Owls can be seen. From head to toe and wing tip to wing tip, these are the world’s largest owls – and one of the rarest. We had hoped to get a look and maybe some photographs. 

In the stream that flows in front of the property, the minshiku owners have created a small pool which they keep stocked with trout. Most nights this time of year a breeding pair of fish owls take turns showing up at the pool to forage for themselves and their chicks. We got some nice photos of both the female and the male owl which we’ll include in an article at a later date.

In addition to the owls, minks – a species introduced from America – are occasional nighttime visitors to the pool. In wintertime, bears follow spawning salmon up the stream. One afternoon I was watching the pool, camera in lap, when a Thick-billed Crow landed in a nearby tree. I knew right away what he had in mind, so I focused on the pool and waited. What I wasn’t prepared for was the short work he made of catching this trout. 

Knee Deep in Trout and Char (somewhere in Hokkaido)

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on July 21, 2018
Posted in: Hokkaido bicycle trek. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Iwana (Dolly Varden Char) are one of Hokkaido’s most celebrated cold-water fish.

I have an incurable habit of looking into water for fish. It doesn’t matter what kind of water. At the beach I check the translucent prisms of waves for whatever might be cruising the surf. Coming upon pools on rivers during hikes I make efforts to position myself so that I’m looking into shade rather than glare so that I can maybe catch a glimpse of something with fins. I’ll even check out coin fountains in the off chance that a carp or even a goldfish might be swimming around. But bridges on quiet country roads crossing pretty little trout streams are especially inviting. There’s almost always a pool below the bridge, and if the water has a population of trout, there are often a few of them hanging out right there. No matter how hard-fished the water might be, it’s worth a look.

Yamame could literally be translated as “Mountain Girl” – a lovely name for a lovely fish. More commonly the stream-dwelling form of this species is called “Cherry Trout.” Similar to Cutthroat and Rainbow Trout of the Pacific Northwest, (to which yamame are related), some go to sea where they attain sizes measured in pounds and return to their natal rivers to spawn bright as polished chrome – Cherry Salmon.

And so there we were, mid-afternoon, straddling our bikes and leaning over the the concrete side of a bridge on a quiet road running through a mix of forest and farmland somewhere in Hokkaido. The water was perfectly clear, but the trout and char are so adeptly camouflaged to match the stony bottoms of these streams that unless one moves they are all but impossible to pick out. 

One moved. As it rose to take something off the surface I could even see its spots. A char of some type. I hadn’t done any fishing yet in Hokkaido. This fish was telling me it was time I did.

I didn’t expect the fish to be large and they weren’t. But in the space of about two hours I covered a couple hundred yards of this silvery mountain stream and caught two dozen or so fish  About half of them were iwana. The others were yamame. A few came to a parachute Adams – my favorite dry fly searching pattern. A lot more came to a pheasant tail nymph – my favorite nymph. A couple of overly eager types tried to eat the pea-sized orange strike indicator I was using. 

A younger version of myself would have kept a few of these fish for the frying pan. But these days I fish for trout in part to simply confirm that they are present, and I wanted these fish to remain present. So Barbra took a couple of photos and I released everything to continue living out their lives in this silvery piece of water and light somewhere in Hokkaido.

There wasn’t a single human footprint along the banks, much less a path. Knee deep in a cold mountain stream full of trout and char – sitting on top of the world, legs hanging free.

A 50-Year Itch Scratched

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on July 16, 2018
Posted in: Hokkaido bicycle trek. Tagged: , , , , , , . 7 Comments

Particularly during wintertime, I used to sleep with my head at the foot of my bed, up in the second story of our house on Route 322. From that position I could look out the window and watch as squat coal trucks lit in amber lights lumbered through the winter darkness up and down the Clarion River hill. Come from where, I didn’t know. Going to where, I didn’t know. My head brimming with stories from the pens of Jack London and Robert Louis Stevenson, those trucks took on the form of ships ferrying their loads to far off lands. Their engine brakes, abrupt and astonishingly loud, undoubtedly bothered most people. I had heard my parents complain about them. But I loved their deep-throated staccato in the way, later in life, I would love the sound of a navy ship announcing with long, loud blasts its departure from the docks, its embarkation upon the open sea.

Against the backdrop of coal trucks as schooners, Japanese glass fishing floats came into my life more as a concept than as a discrete “thing.” The summer I turned nine, my parents gathered us up and took us to Oregon for well over a month. While my mother attended graduate school classes, we stayed in a small apartment close enough to the coast that it was maddeningly tantalizing, far enough inland that I got only a few looks at the rocky-shouldered Pacific. And so that ocean grew in my mind as things not realized often do, as did its salmon and fishing boats and the quiet, mysterious, romantic coastal towns. The glass floats were part of that. Carefully arranged as decorative items in restaurants, casually gathering dust in the corners of motel lobbies and antique shops, for sale among the bric-a-brac in souvenir shops, these imperfectly bubbled spheres of aqua blues and marine greens were captivating enough in their own right. But the idea… that they had broken free from nets thousands of miles distance and ridden a great, cold, arcing current for perhaps decades before reaching the beaches of the Pacific Northwest, and that the ones out there in the ocean now are the last of them, having been replaced by plastic, was beyond cool. It was compelling. 

I dreamed of finding one. Many years later I purchased a couple to display and admire in my home. But it’s not the same as actually discovering one of your own delivered to some windswept swath of sand after a sea storm. A friend even gave me some he’d found on a beach up in Alaska. The gesture was appreciated, but…

The day after my 59th birthday, Barbra and I were having breakfast on a drift log on a beach in northern Hokkaido. We were watching a few shore anglers casting for Cherry Salmon near the mouth of a small river. As we did, Barbra’s eyes wandered down the beach. 

And there it was. 

I wasn’t quite as jealous as I thought I’d be. After all, at least one of us had found one. While I was trying to reconcile myself to “our” float, it occurred to me that where there was one, there might be another. I lifted up the binoculars which we’d brought along to watch the fisherman, and then without saying anything I handed them to Barbra and ran down the beach.

And that’s how we came to find not one but two Japanese glass fishing floats on the day after my 59th birthday.

Tunnels of Love – Light at the end of the Tunnel – Tunnel Vision: A Bicyclist’s Point of View

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on July 14, 2018
Posted in: Hokkaido bicycle trek. Tagged: , , , , . 4 Comments

A kind snow tunnel – not too long, plenty of light, and just enough shoulder.

There is something about tunnels, sometimes dark and scary, sometimes magical and transformative.

When I was very young, my family drove around in a Volkswagen Beetle. I remember enjoying the magic of the immediate darkness of tunnels. The dark would be simultaneously met with the crackle of static on the radio as we lost reception. Then the heartbeat of yellow lights would blink into the windows from the dim tunnel lighting providing a rhythm to accompany the radio static. With a jolt from this world, the Beetle would be blasted back into the light and back into normal. It was fascinating to my young imagination.

Some welcome! Eighteen meters tall (almost 60 feet), the demon of Noboribetsu would be the perfect host to some of the tunnels we traversed.

Fast forward to our current bike trek in Hokkaido. Our ride has brought a whole new stream of consciousness to the tunnel. In recent years, hadn’t given much thought to these marvels of modern engineering, the exception being the time I drove our pickup while towing our fishing vessel Gillie through the unnervingly narrow tunnel that leads to the town of Whittier, Alaska. Steering wheel gripped tightly in my hands, I could feel the boat trailer sashaying back and forth on the slick railroad tracks that transversed the abyss. But that is another story.

The first “real” tunnel seemed long, but at just over a mile, it turned out to be merely average.

Our introduction to the tunnel by bicycle happened the very first day of our Hokkaido trek. It was a kind introduction as the tunnel was of the type designed to keep the heavy winter snowfalls off the road. Wrapped tight to a mountain pass, the tunnel’s outside wall featured a series of openings where sunlight poured in, giving the space a comfortable, open feeling. Moreover, there was a large enough shoulder to ensure safe passage even for our somewhat Rubinesque, trailer-towing bikes. Though several hundred meters in length, this first light-filled tunnel with its wide sidewalk was a breeze.

Our first “real” tunnel – dank, dark, cold, long and narrow – came later. We hugged the shoulder, our safety lights blinking, pedaling as fast as possible, worried that approaching vehicles wouldn’t see us in time. The amplified roar of oncoming traffic echoed and mixed with the odor of mold, grease, diesel and exhaust fumes and in that dark tube we experienced the paradox of simultaneously feeling that we we traveling very fast while making little progress. Jack found the energy in his legs to pull ahead, even while pulling the trailer. My nerves must have been apparent as a kind driver slowed behind me and escorted me to daylight.

At this point, I can’t believe how many tunnels we’ve gone through. The best tunnels have been the snow tunnels. They rank high because of the natural light and their relative brevity. On rare occasions, we’ve traveled through tunnels with a sidewalk separated by a safety railing. But even these tunnels can’t muffle the brain-rattling sounds of roaring trucks and screaming motorcycles, and there’s always the sense that you’ve got to concentrate on maintaining an unerringly straight course lest you pin yourself to some protrusion jutting out from the soot-stained tunnel wall.

One day, we had a relatively short ride from Yoichi to Otaru along Hokkaido’s southwest coast. The map showed tunnels…lots of tunnels…between the two towns and in fact the ride felt almost like a constant tunnel as even when we weren’t physically inside a tube we were psychologically preparing for one. This day featured our worst tunnel experience.

As usual, we were swallowed into the tunnel in question just as we had been swallowed into the semi-darkness and wet chill of previous tunnels. We rode on a sidewalk, which was just wide enough to handle our bike’s girth with panniers and the trailer. But perhaps a kilometer into the dimness and utterly without warning, the sidewalk shrunk to half its size. The next thing I knew, Jack’s front panniers hit the railings and he screeched to a stop. Escaping with a bloodied knuckle and a mouthful of expletives, we survived the tunnel by crowding into the flanks of our bikes and walking the remainder of the way, our shins absorbing a few pedal bites in the process, the experience bringing fresh gratitude for the light at the end of the tunnel!

After a wonderful two-days in the city of Otaru, we steeled our nerves for the ride up the coast. The ride would be beautiful. But there would be tunnels. Lots and some really long ones. Rattled from the most recent tunnel experience, at the first one we encountered we opted to push our bikes through on the very narrow sidewalk. Just wide enough to accommodate our bikes in this fashion, the sidewalk seemed to have been installed for maintenance workers rather than pedestrians. Our plan was for me to follow Jack closely and shout a warning if the outside trailer wheel got too close to the edge of the walk. Using this strategy was maybe safer, but it seemed like it took forever.

As we traveled up the coast, traffic grew lighter. We couldn’t stomach another long walk through another dark and deafening tunnel and the one we were now facing was truly a beast – two nearly adjoining tunnels spanning almost four miles. It was time to shore up our confidence and place some faith our fellow drivers. We strapped on headlamps and, as I was in the rear position, I added a couple of blinking lights to my rig and off we went.

Translation? Tunnel after tunnel after tunnel after tunnel!”

At some point, I had adopted a strategy of singing in the tunnels in order to drown out the deafening noises and to distract myself from my own nerves. I didn’t just sing. I sang at the top of my lungs. This turned out to work pretty well – once Jack didn’t take my singing noises as anguished cries for help. And so for most of four miles I belted out any song that came to mind.

Time to take in some sunshine, enjoy lunch, and scan for birds.

Once we had finally put the beast behind us, we pulled off the road for a rest and a celebratory lunch. Apparently you can burn some serious calories pedaling like a dervish while simultaneously singing at the top of your lungs!

Tinged with the unknown and eliciting perhaps mixed emotions of safety and danger, tunnels remain fascinating to me. For a little while, they take you out of the world in which you’ve been residing, close in around you, carry you along in a way that demands a kind of trust… and then deliver you to some newly lighted world on the other side.

A happy bear eating salmon at one end and light at the other. A perfect tunnel.

Agehachou – Asian Swallowtail Butterfly

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on July 8, 2018
Posted in: Hokkaido bicycle trek. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 3 Comments

Almost surreal in it irredescence, this agehachou is one of the many stunning butterflies we’ve encountered on our Hokkaido bike trek.

We’re not lepidopterists, but it would be all but impossible not to notice the incredible beauty and diversity of the moths and butterflies – not to mention the amazing variety of caterpillars – we’ve been encountering on our bike trek around Hokkaido, Japan. If you find them early enough in the morning when they’re still warming up, you can sometimes sneak a decent photo. This agehachou (Asian swallowtail) is among the more stunning butterflies we’ve found, but it seems that all butterflies are beautiful. As the summer progresses and flowers change, different species are emerging. Today the paths were filled with nearly iridescent black caterpillars, leaving us wondering what form they’ll take as adults.

The Many Tastes of Hokkaido – Kita no Lamp-tei Restaurant in Shiraoi

Posted by Jack & Barbra Donachy on July 4, 2018
Posted in: Hokkaido bicycle trek. Tagged: , , , , , , , . 6 Comments

Our waiter’s recommendation: a platter of seafood ready for the tabletop grill featuring some of Shiraoi’s regional summertime specialties. From 12:00: King Crab legs, ocean-fresh salmon, Sailfin Poacher, Willow Leaf Smelt, Thornyhead Rockfish, Surf Clam, Sea Scallop, center, flounder. (Viewer discretion is advised regarding the food photographs that follow.)

When the only two people in Shiraoi we asked for an evening restaurant recommendation immediately suggested the same place even while in the same breath acknowledging that it was too far to reach in a bike trip, our interest was definitely piqued. The first person we asked was our server at Shiraoi’s Kinpen Cafe where we were having a delicious casual seafood lunch and the other was a guide at the local tourist information agency – people who were likely to know where the best food was being served. We lamented the fact that we probably wouldn’t connect with the Kita no Rampu-tei (Northern Lamp) restaurant and resigned ourselves to our standard “Plan B” – ride until we come upon something. That particular night, we grabbed an assortment of sushi and other items at a local supermarket and took them back to our campground for dinner. (And by the way, if you’ve never had supermarket sushi in Japan, don’t be tempted to compare it to the generally not-very-good fare offered in American supermarkets. Supermarket sushi in Japan is superb.)

An excellent choice for casual dining – and a good place to get additional dining recommendations – Kinpen Cafe, Shiraoi.

We broke camp late the following morning at Poroto Campground, hopped on our bikes and headed southwest along the coast toward the city of Noboribetsu.

Frogs, woodpeckers, deer and other wildlife added a nice touch to the quiet, well-maintained campground at Poroto Lake in Shiraoi.

Taking an especially leisurely pace even by our standards, we paused for a while to talk with fishermen trying their luck for flounder and greenling along a harbor wall, had a picnic lunch along another sea wall and stopped frequently to check out African Stonechats and other songbirds which seemed to be everywhere. By the time we’d covered a few miles, the sun was coming down and we were ready for dinner. 

There were some nice fish being caught along this harbor wall. The main target was greenling with flounder showing up in good numbers as well.

Longtime admirers of the beautiful, hand-blown glass floats Japanese fishermen used to buoy their nets in the pre-plastic era, an attractive display of large floats hanging from a building drew our attention. We spent a good bit of time photographing the floats before we realized that the building they were attached to was a restaurant, and a bit of time after that before I stepped back and attempted to decipher the name of the place.

 北のランプ亭. 

“Hey! Kita no Lamp!” I called out to Barbra. “This is the place those people recommended!”

“Oh, wow! What are the odds? Let’s see if we can get a table!” She replied.

We found out later that Kita no Lamp is the top rated of the area’s 80-some restaurants and that it can be tough to get into without a reservation. Still early in the tourist season and late on a mid-week night to boost, luckily we were able to get a table. I don’t know the bar an establishment has to clear to earn Michelin recognition, but what followed was easily one of the best restaurant experiences either one of us have ever had. 

Our waiter first presented this pair of ama-ebi (Northern Deepwater Prawn) live, then took them to the kitchen where they were prepared for the table.

Many years ago as a student of things Japanese, I read several dismissive accounts of Japanese cuisine. “Bland” was a term that cropped up more than once. This was before the sushi revolution swept the world, a revolution that was followed by a growing appreciation of the seasonality of foods, the subtleties of different types of noodles, and before terms such as “umami” had become part of the world-wide culinary lexicon. In fact, when I found myself stationed in Japan as a United States Navy sailor, I couldn’t understand what those writers were talking about. Japanese food is amazing. 

Ikura (salmon roe) served with slivers of nori and a smidgeon of wasabi atop a bowl of steaming hot rice kept the meal moving forward.

Hokkaido in particular merits food destination status, and while seafood reigns supreme on this island surrounded by cold, clean Pacific seas, there is tender, flavorful beef, pork, lamb and fresh fruits and vegetables that rival the best to be found anywhere. Indeed, much of the food will be minimally seasoned. With the very best ingredients served fresh and at their peak, a light hand with seasoning is ideal.

We had been told that we absolutely must try Shiraoi beef. In fact, a fellow camper at Poroto shared a couple of expertly grilled pieces with us, leaving us wanting more of this incredibly flavorful, fatty, soft beef. Here a steak shares a plate with local pork belly, sausages, marinated chicken, pumpkin, mushrooms and asparagus which was at the peak of perfection during our time in Shiraoi.

And so, relatively early in our summer in Hokkaido and comfortably seated at one the island’s top restaurants, we followed our waiter’s recommendations, ordered too much food, savored every last bit of it, and, with the owner’s permission, ended up pitching our tent on the restaurant’s property and spending the night there.

At this time of year, virtually all of Hokkaido features creamy, fresh-from the ocean Sea Urchin. Here a bowl is served along with salmon sashimi.

While researching this trip, we kept coming across photos of grilled scallops. Our first encounter with this delicacy was served with a thick pat of rich Hokkaido butter. It was fun grilling these shellfish right at our table. When the butter is melted and not a second longer, the clams and scallops are ready. Add a splash of soy sauce… or not.

Northern Lamp’s decor harkened back to earlier times – classic posters, vintage sake jugs, period lamps and lanterns, and seafaring themed relics.

Each table featured a grill which the wait staff filled with hot wood coals when customers were seated. 

These sailors may have been assigned to guard the sake jugs behind them, but they seemed to be more interested in the feast we were working on.

We finished the meal with a small scoop of lemon sorbet – and with some effort got up from the table and set up camp. The following morning we woke to the sun rising over the back deck of Kita no Lamp Restaurant.