Category Archives: Bird watching

Kurokawa onsen region and a few birds

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When: October 2024 Weather: Cool 13 to 208

Nikon P900

After a few days in Yufuin, we drove on to the Kurokawa onsen area where we stayed at the Sanga Ryokan at the end of a narrow winding road after the town centre of Kurokawa….it’s about 1.5 hours from Yufuin. Unfortunately the weather was wet and cold the couple of days we were there.

some interesting plants on the way…

The onsen in Sanga is nicer than at Tamanoyu with more variety and larger outdoor baths……but I much preferred the brighter , more westernised rooms at Tamanoyu….the next day we took the shuttle bus down to the tourist information centre in Kurokawa and set off on one of the trail walks…Trail no. 1

This is the start of trail no. 1 and its just opposite the tourist information centre….it was wet and horeible but we persevered and walked up the trail and down to join trail 3 which led us back to the town centre a couple of hours later….not a tough trail.
beginnings of the autumn foliage
streams and waterfalls
beautiful buildings on the approach into the town centre with its narrowed sloping alleyways and restaurants where we had a good lunch…whilst we could have phoned for the shuttle to go back we decided to walk back the 1km to sanga ryokan to see if we could see any birds!
A group of Japanese white eyes entertained us
Japanese white eye
turtle dove in the rain
lovely male daurian redstart posing
male daurian redstart
female daurian redstart
female daurian redstart
fall foliage

The birding was scanty in kurokawa but that was more due to the weather than anything else…… If you are ever in the area in November, it’s worth planning a trip to the Arasaki crane sanctuary which is but 3.5 hours away from Kurokawa…we didn’t have time to fit in in but there’s always next year….