The Forests of Kunashir Island

Coniferous forest with lianas and bamboo undergrowth

Steve and I share a fascination for the wilds of northeast Asia. An added bonus for me is that the region is the eco analog to here which is the boreal deciduous transition on the northwest corner of a temperature ocean. So similar and, yet, so different. This picture brought that out. Coniferous forest with lianas and bamboo undergrowth is just not an association seen here, never mind, the tigers and leopards, as much as, I would like that.

The Russian blog has the best pix of Northeast Asia I have seen.

NS Bird Society

“Holy amazing bird! I couldn’t believe it when I first heard the reports that Phil Taylor found a Steller’s Sea Eagle near Windsor. I was out the door in a flash. Picked up a few guys in Wolfville and then zoomed out to Falmouth. The bird was perched in a distant tree when we arrived and later flew across the river and perched in an even more distant tree. So many birders showed up and got to see it. Such an awesome find.

This is likely the same bird found in Northern NB and QC over the summer. Photos suggest that that was the same bird that was seen all the way down in Texas. This bird should be in Russia and Japan!

Steller’s Sea Eagles are beyond rare in this part of the world. They breed in eastern Russia and winter in Southeast Asia. Some wander as far as Alaska but other than this bird, none have made it to eastern Canada. This species marks my 350th bird in Nova Scotia! I never thought that I would get another lifer so soon after the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher the other day and did not expect this species at all!

I saw an odd tie in today with the announcement that a wayward Steller’s Sea Eagle has returned to this area. Other than being 6000 miles from home, he likely finds it pretty similar.

5 comments

For photos of northeast Asia, Andrei Grachev and Sergei Karpukhin are your huckleberries, especially if you can decipher some Cyrillic toponyms:
http://photogeographic.ru/galereya-foto-krasivejshhix-mest-rossii/

They’re active on Facebook as well. Interesting foreign photographers whose languages I don’t really read are one of the reasons I stay on there.

“If you look on the lower wing toward the end, you can see the mark that identifies this bird as the same one that has been travelling around North America this past year.’

An update.
Along way from home and he gets around.