Places I'm Visiting: Japan 2024 – Sado

I'm now on the island of Sado, north of Niigata. Once known for its gold and silver mines, it's now known (at least in my mind) for the reintroduction there of the Toki, or Japanese Crested Ibis (Nipponia nippon), Japan's national bird. The Toki is endangered throughout its much-reduced range, and it was eliminated entirely in Japan (how embarrassing to have let your national bird go locally extinct) because of habitat loss and excessive use of pesticides, but it has been reintroduced from China and a small population is established on the Island again.

The weather has been terrible here – very cold, and very windy. Overnight it has snowed. Yesterday it was so windy I couldn't hold my lens still enough to get a photograph of a Toki in flight, but I did observe a few birds poking around in the post-harvest rice paddies. The Toki is usually pictured in the peachy-white non-breeding plumage it shows in the winter months. Right now, however,  the birds are already in breeding plumage – slaty grey on the neck, nape, and upper back – but they still have their distinctive vermillion faces, and, in flight, their beautiful peach-tinted white wings.