Blakiston’s Fish Owl Shiretoko Peninsula, Hokkaido, Japan, July 23, 2018
With a wingspan ranging from about 5′ 10″ to 6′ 3″ (170 – 190 cm), Blakiston’s Fish Owls are generally regarded as the world’s largest living species of owl. The photograph above is of one of a known wild pair which have been banded. The owls regularly visit a small stream where a pool has been created with natural rocks and is regularly stocked with Cherry Trout (sakuramasu, O. masau). A small inn with windows overlooking the pool provides guests with opportunities for a glimpse of this rare species which may visit the pool at any time during the night. The indigenous people of Hokkaido, the Ainu, regarded these great owls as spiritual protectors of their villages.
For context, Barbra with this taxidermy specimen grasping a White-spotted Char (Rain Char). Blakiston’s Fish Owl is a type of Eagle Owl and therefore related to the familiar Great Horned Owl of North America. The Great Horned Owl has a wingspan of approximately four feet, two feet less than the Blakiston’s span of around six feet.
Japanese Glass Fishing Floats Hokkaido, Japan, July 16, 2018
The summer I turned nine I encountered my very first Japanese glass fishing floats. I was in Oregon, and in addition to populating gift shops and restaurant decor, back then these mystical treasures still occasionally washed up on Oregon’s beaches, particularly after big winter storms. That summer I concluded my 13th consecutive reading of Call of the Wild, and Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe were still fresh. My mind was filled with dreams of faraway lands. The floats, hand blown by craftsmen, fragile, beautiful, traveling across the vast Pacific over decades and thus providing a link not only with the exotic country of Japan but also with ships and fishermen and a culture of yore were utterly captivating.
Over the years, we’ve been gifted a collection of these floats from friends lucky enough to have lived along one of the few beaches where they still wash up. The gifts are appreciated… but it’s not the same as finding one myself. From California to Alaska, in all the years since that Oregon summer I’ve never visited a beach without harboring vague hopes of finding one.
Somewhere past the town of Shari (斜里町) as we approached the Shiretoko Peninsula, we stopped at a beach to have our breakfast and watch sport fishermen cast into the surf for Cherry Salmon.
Barbra found the first one. My stomach turned a little… conflicted. Happy for her find, but disappointed that it hadn’t been me. But where there’s one… maybe… Planting my feet where she found that first float, I scanned every inch of the beach through binoculars. And then, without a word, I handed the binoculars to Barbra and took off, running with all the joy of a young boy turning nine.
I made this image from a picture I took at Mokoto Train Station in Hokkaido when I looked up into a mirror above the waiting platform and saw Barbra there looking at her phone. There’s something about the scene – populated with houses and rail, and yet eerily empty – and Barbra, alone, looking at her phone -, that seemed to imply something universal about loneliness and the fine line between expectation and disappointment. Compositionally, the frame within the frame here appeals to me… as do… exotic elements such as Barbra’s bright red hair, Japanese writing and the ambiguity suggested by rail that appears to be rusted and perhaps no longer in use.
I am happy to acknowledge the influences of others… here a nod to Stefanie Schneider and her Instant Dreams series, which I invite readers to check out on Instagram or elsewhere. I’m not sure that there isn’t a hint of the old Twilight Zone TV series in this image as well… I think virtually all of us of a certain generation carry within our psyches some lingering effect of Rod Serling’s creation.
Speaking of which… as I attempt to build more exposure for my own work, I’ve been regularly posting on instagram. At some point, I intend to build a website dedicated to photography. Until then, Instagram is a good place to see photographs in one place without needing to click around a lot. If you’re interested, here’s the link: jackdonachy. Be sure to leave a “like” if you like what you see. Thanks!
Totoro Summer Rishiri Island, Hokkaido, Japan, June 29, 2018
Rishiri-to (Rishiri Island), was one of four small islands we ferried to during our Hokkaido trek. Each of these islands offered beautiful, inexpensive campgrounds, and except for one night, we had the grounds to ourselves. One of my personal objectives during the trek was to have Babra experience authentic Japanese tempura. In a small shop run by an elderly couple on Rishiri-to, we found The Best fare of that kind I’ve ever had. 凡天 (Bonten) may or may not still exist as we found it six years ago; the couple was advanced in years, the shop was small, unassuming and might easily be overlooked. But among other dishes we sampled was tempura uni – sea urchin battered and fried to perfection tempura-style. Like the other three islands we visited, a road lacing along the coastline made bicycling a complete circumference (30-some miles in the case of Rishiri) enjoyable. Lots of birds, flowers, fresh air… and a couple of Totoro sightings!
With the exception of a very few tennis-ball-sized glass floats used in skates set for Olive Flounder (hirame, 平目, ヒラメ), glass fishing floats are artifacts of yesteryear. Broken free from lines and nets perhaps decades ago, they still wash up on North American beaches, especially in parts of Alaska. We came across some beautiful collections during our Hokkaido trek. Here a loaded skiff on Yagashiri Island.
Thursday Morning Coffee Bar, Teuri Island Campground Teuri Island, Hokkaido Japan, June 21, 2018
Clean restrooms close by (to answer the first question on the minds of most casual campers), good clean drinking water, quiet, and the entire grounds to ourselves. I don’t imagine that the camping situation has changed much since we visited Hokkaido in 2018. Traveling to Teuri with our bicycles was easy via the ferry from Haboro on Hokkaido’s west coast. We only spent two days on Teuri, but agreed we could easily have enjoyed a week on this small, bird-rich island.
Scrolling down panels in lightroom as I brought up the above photograph, I decided to give a relatively new feature a try: Lens Blur. With a single click, this AI-driven feature isolated what it interpreted to be the subject and foreground and then blurred (decreased the clarity) of the background. It worked well – which is to say, I liked the result.
To be sure, a more competent photographer equipped with the right lens could easily have achieved similar results in-camera. But six years ago when I captured this image, I was a less competent photographer. Less competent not only from a technical standpoint, but also my eye was less well developed, and so I didn’t always appreciate the pleasing effect a bokehed background could add to a photograph.
While I could have used masks and clarity sliders to isolate the subject and achieve the same effect, this Lens Blur feature significantly speeded up the process. So…
I might have more to say about AI technology in future posts. It’s here, part of our world now. Lots to think about. JD
Rhinoceros Auklet returning at Dusk with a Catch of Sand Lances and Squid The grayish-white protuberance on the bill – the horn that inspires the Rhinoceros Auklet’s name –is fluorescent and thus highly visible to their fellows when diving for fish or flying in dim light. Teuri Island, Hokkaido, Japan, June 19, 2018
You might encounter this puffin relative just about anywhere along North America’s Pacific coastline, and in fact there are breeding populations scattered from Canada through Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. But perhaps the best place to see Rhinoceros Auklets is on Terui Island off the west coast of Hokkaido where they gather in the hundreds of thousands to nest – the largest Rhinoceros Auklet breeding colony in the world.
The northwest cliffs of Teuri are pockmarked with burrows which the auklets have dug deep into the sandy soil to keep their eggs and chicks safe from gulls and other predators. During the day, the parents leave their chicks behind as they venture out to sea where they dive for food – primarily Sand Lances and squid. As twilight gathers, the adult auklets return to home, somehow sorting out their burrows from among the tens of thousands of similar tunnels. Gulls await the returning auklets, keen on stealing an easy meal. This is an example of why for many species it is so important that their numbers remain vast. Were only a few auklets to return, they’d each make an easy target for the waiting gulls. But with hundreds of thousands flying in, the relatively few gulls are overwhelmed, and although the gulls manage to take a few meals, most of the auklets make it safely to their burrows where hungry chicks are waiting.
On Terui Island, guides are available to take birders out to the nesting site to observe the spectacle of returning auklets. Along a pathway, a few low lights allow for a good view of the birds as they scurry through low, dense vegetation. Some of the auklets will be quite close, but in order to get good photographs a fast lens and a camera capable of handling high ISO values is necessary as using additional lighting is not permitted (and would be wrong, even it were). You’ll be hand-holding and so you have to hope you catch one standing still to momentarily collect its thoughts, as in the above photograph. JD
Rhinoceros Auklet Breeding Grounds, Teuri Island Hokkaido, Japan, June 18, 2018
Not a lot appears to be going on in the above daytime photograph taken on Teuri Island’s cliff-lined northwest. The 2.1 square mile island (5.5 square km) hosts the breeding grounds for several species of birds, most notably seabirds. The holes in the above photograph are the burrows of Rhinoceros Auklets, a species for which Teuri serves as the world’s largest breeding ground.
While it doesn’t appear that much is going on in the photograph – a few gulls milling around notwithstanding – at the end of each burrow, which may be up to six meters (20 feet) in length, a Rhinoceros Auklet chick is waiting for twilight when parents will return from the sea, stomachs, gullets and bills crammed with catches of sand lances and squid. Gulls – primarily Slaty-backed which also breed on the island – will intercept some of the returning adults, but most will make it past the parasitic phalanx. Recent estimates put the auklet population at around 400,000 breeding pairs. Add in the chicks and the species count rises to over a million. Perhaps you can imagine the sight and the cacophony as night gathers and hundreds of thousands of adult auklets return, evading squawking gulls, somehow locating the specific burrow each parent calls home.
Teuri is also an excellent place to see Spectacled Guillemots, Common Guillemots and other seabirds as well as passerines such as Blue Rock Thrushes and Siberian Rubythroats. Regular, bicycle-friendly ferries from Haboro make it easy to get out to the island, and if you don’t choose to stay at the lovely campground (which you’re likely to have to yourself) there are wonderful inns offering comfortable accomodations and truly some of the world’s best fresh seafood.
Herring House (Nishin Goten) West Coast of Hokkaido near Haboro – June 17, 2018
Somewhat paralleling the boom and bust of America’s west coast sardine/herring fishery (see Cannery Row), in the late 1800’s through the early 1900’s, fortunes were made and lost on the back of Hokkaido’s west coast herring fishery. The building in the above image is a Nishin Goten, a communal house for the herring fishermen of that era. Inside are the captain’s quarters, other areas where fishermen and other employees (I’m assuming the fishermen’s wives who were vital in processing the catch) could roll out their futons. Such houses featured a kitchen, a place to store slippers (in those days woven from grass) and a bit of furniture. These days, several Nishin Goten are preserved and open to visitors – well worth a stop if you’re traveling Hokkaido’s west coast along the famed Herring Highway.
Above Tokyo, Flying into Narita Airport on Japan’s Main Island, Honshu The ancient poets of Tang and Sung Dynasty China called city life “chaos and dust.” Approaching Chitose Airport, 33 miles SW of Sapporo on Japan’s most Northerly Island, Hokkaido A much more agreeable landscape for a bicycle trek
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