Site Report: Akan-Mashu National Park

Visits

• 2024-02-18: Leaving from Kushiro Marsh, we encountered some weird directions on the GPS. We ended up reaching a road covered in snow, and we had to do some backtracking. This was lucky in a way as we got some great views of two foxes making a lot of weird noises. We continued to Lake Arak. I was expecting a lake, but it was completely frozen over with a tent city and snowmobiles on the lake. We walked around in the snow for awhile looking for the Black Woodpecker. We decided to try for another lake, but that one was covered by ice as well. After a lot of walking around in the snow, we finally arrived at our accommodations at sunset.
• 2024-02-19: During dinner time at the hotel, there was sometimes a Blakinston's Fish-Owl coming to visit just outside the dining room. This is a very large and rare owl. The owl did not show up for dinner, however, and I waited about 45 minutes before giving up. There was this young Japanese guy waiting as well, and he stayed there. I did a bunch of other stuff such as drinking a few beers, soaking in the hot tub, and sleep before waking up at 3:45 to take another crack at the owl. When I got to the owl spot, that Japanese guy was still there. He had been sitting in the same spot for nearly 9 hours. Five minutes after I sat down, the owl showed up.
• 2024-02-20: A quick morning waiting for Barbara to do some more hot springs, but she fell back asleep thinking that I went wandering around. Lucky for her, the pygmy woodpecker made a good showing while I waited.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Asia
• World

Trips

• Japan