insights from frontier Japan

The green color of trees reflects on the surface of Lake Kussharo (Teshikaga Town in the Eastern Hokkaido Kushiro region), but the atmosphere of autumn has touched this area as well. At the lakeside, I encountered a crested kingfisher, a bird known for the crested plumage atop its head. The crested kingfisher is immensely cautious, so getting close to the bird is difficult. They establish territories at mountain streams and lakes and live there, but they rarely ever show themselves. They can be identified by a high-pitched chirping sound generated while flying, which can be heard over long distances. When it found a perching tree for hunting the fish it feeds on, I hid myself in a slightly removed spot so as not to stand out, and waited.

Propelling its tail fin high in the air, the giant sperm whale begins to dive. Sightseers aboard the boat cheer at the breathtaking sight. I searched for whales on a whale watching sightseeing boat that departed from Rausu Port.　Although sperm whales have large bodies, they have comparatively small back fins, making them difficult to find. According to the guide on the sightseeing boat, sperm whales spout air at a slightly diagonal angle, and that can be one way of spotting them. But even using binoculars, all I could see was the brightly shining sea water.

While traveling across a scree slope in search of pika rock rabbits halfway up Mt. Tokachidake, I encountered two chipmunks. Many mammals are highly independent and often live alone, except during the breeding and parenting seasons. Perhaps the two chipmunks were siblings that were born this year; as I moved closer, I could see them gazing at each other, their faces occasionally touching.

In order to photograph brown bears off the coast of the tip Shiretoko Peninsula, where there are no roads, a boat departs from the Utoro port in the town of Shari. We had received information from the crew of a Shiretoko sightseeing boat, of “sightings of bears swimming in the sea”, and requested boat-owning colleagues to take us there. There are no fears of suddenly approaching brown bears from a boat, and many brown bears have been confirmed walking along the coastline, but it’s not easy to encounter a swimming bear.

To escape the midsummer heat, I climbed up to the base of the approximately one thousand-meter tall Mt. Tokachidake. There, along the steep scree slope with small and large rocks piled atop each other, I heard a high pitched "Eeep! Eeep!" cry and saw the approximately 15 centimeter long body of a pika.

Lying comfortably on its mother’s abdomen is a baby sea otter (pup). As its fur is still soft, it is unable to dive beneath the water. 　The pup’s fur is meticulously groomed by the mother otter; air is allowed to flow between the hairs, providing buoyancy and insulation to protect it from the cold sea water. As the mother dives beneath the water in search of food, the pup floats silently on the surface of the water as it waits for her return.

I’m aboard a dolphin-watching boat as it heads to Funka Bay from the port of Muroran in central Hokkaido. A pod of dolphins with dorsal fins protruding from the surface of the water, swims slowly by. Suddenly, two or three dolphins increase their speed and jump high out of the water. Summer is the mating season for Pacific white-sided dolphins, and males try to attract females with their jumps.

Sea mist covers the Otanoshike area seashore in Eastern Hokkaido's Kushiro City. Black-browed reed warblers tweet excitedly.

The place, a cliff in the Eastern Hokkaido Tokachi region facing the Pacific Ocean. A peregrine falcon spies a bird flying atop the waves and takes off.