Working On It

Last week saw me repeatedly visiting Oyukaeri Kawa (おゆかえり川) in Asami 3 Chou-me almost every afternoon. The place is far from my place and I had to walk a long way to get there, but I still wanted to go because of one little bird, the Brown Dipper (Cinclus pallasii). Although considered a common species in Japan, it is an extremely rare vagrant with no single record in the recent decades in Thailand, so I was really excited to see it. I've actually seen the bird many times before in India, but I still couldn't get any decent shot of it. The Brown Dipper in India is also a different subspecies from the one in Japan, C.p.tenuirostris is the Indian subspecies, while C.p.pallasii is the Japanese one.

Brown Dipper (Cinclus pallasii pallasii)

There were 2 individuals living along the Oyukaeri river, one on the upper stream, and another one around the lower stream. I only concentrated on the latter because the former was much shier and harder to photograph. Although it was not difficult to find the birds, it was super difficult to get close to them. Though I said that the one in the lower stream was less shy, I didn't mean that it wasn't shy at all. I had to hide and wait for them for hours just to get a few shots. I often walk to the area around 11 after checking Beppu Koen, and finish as the sun set behind the mountain around 2:30. I noticed that when it starts to get darker, the bird seems to be less wary and comes out to the open to preen and bath, but that also means that the light is not good. I still haven't got the most satisfiable shot so far, so I still have to work on it. Or maybe I'll have to wait until spring, when the birds breed and nest.