Hokkaido Winter Wildlife 8 Day Photography Tour

We will meet at our hotel at 4:00 pm at our hotel in Abashiri, the largest city on Hokkaido’s eastern Sea of Okhotsk coast. Once everyone is gathered, we will make our way to a park in Abashiri City that is renowned for its population of small birds and mammals. Along the way, we will spend some time getting to know each other, practising our photography and getting used to Hokkaido’s frigid conditions for our upcoming adventure before dinner at our accommodation tonight. For those who aren’t used to walking on icy roads, we will introduce you to the penguin-walking technique! There will be time after dinner to get your gear and photography set up in advance of tomorrow.

After breakfast, we will we make our way from Abashiri to Rausu Shiretoko, making a stop for a quick lunch or snack break and keeping our eyes peeled for wildlife along the way.

Once we arrive in Rausu, it’s time to get ourselves ready for our first photography outing. After an early dinner, we will make our way to an observatory for the Blakiston’s Fish Owl. The world's largest owl and revered as kotan kor kamui (guardian of the village) by the Ainu, Hokkaido's indigenous people, they make for a unique photography subject. Note that it is impossible to know if and when the owls will turn up, so you may be in for a long wait and you may also want to prepare yourself for disappointment. Entry times to the observatory are strictly regulated to keep the environment suitable for the owls. Visitors are free to leave the observatory as long as the owl is not present, but of course we’ll have to reach the decision of when we leave as a group. As we will have a very early start tomorrow for our included Steller’s Sea Eagle morning cruise, we cannot stay too long.

After visiting the observatory, we’ll head back to the hotel where we can catch some brief sleep before tomorrow’s early rise.

We’ll be up before dawn today, ready to depart our accommodation at 5:00 am so that we can set out on a nature cruise among the ice floes. If we are lucky we will see White-tailed Eagles and Brunnich’s Guillemots, in addition to the star of the show, the majestic Steller’s Sea Eagle. Our boat is a small, charter boat that will put us on the same eye level with these incredible creatures.

The cruise lasts for up to 2 hours depending on conditions and you will be on the cold water’s surface with no shelter for all of this time, so suitable, warm layers are non-negotiable. You will be left ashore if you are under-dressed!

Please note that the cruise may not operate depending on drift ice, ocean and weather conditions. If the cruise is cancelled due to weather or waves, we can try a departure later in the morning or we can try again tomorrow (no refund will be given for cancelled cruises).

After returning to our accommodation for breakfast, you’ll have the rest of the morning at leisure. For those who are feeling refreshed after lunch, you can join your guides, if you wish, for an optional afternoon outing around Rausu. In the evening, we'll reunite for dinner at your accommodation.

There will be another option for a Steller’s Sea Eagle cruise tomorrow morning. This second cruise also serves as our contingency in the event that this morning’s cruise could not go ahead.

This morning, we have another opportunity to head out at dawn to photograph Steller's Sea Eagles, this time on a larger cruise boat. Today's cruise also serves as our back-up if yesterday's cruise was cancelled. However, if you're already happy with your eagle photos from yesterday, you are welcome to stay in bed if you would prefer!

If today’s cruise is also cancelled, we will do our best to reschedule for later in the morning. However, if this is unlikely, we will cancel the cruise (no refund given) and try to find an alternate activity later on during the tour instead.

After the cruise, we will return to our accommodation for breakfast and after checking out of our accommodation, we will make our way to the Notsuke Peninsula. The Notsuke Peninsula, another Ramsar site, is a very large sand spit sticking out into the icy Nemuro Strait and provides a unique ecosystem home to all kinds of wildlife, including many herds of deer, picking their way across the peninsula's frozen surface and chilly sands. Red Foxes often make an appearance here too, as do both Steller's Sea Eagles and White-tailed Eagles. We’ll spend the rest of the day photographing here, breaking for lunch in between, giving you plenty of time to capture your dream shot. Although wildlife is commonly seen around the clock on the Notsuke Peninsula, it is most active after 3pm, so you may wish to save your best shots until then. Once we’ve enjoyed ourselves, we’ll depart for our accommodation in Yoroushi Onsen.

This evening also offers another opportunity to photograph the Blakiston's Fish Owl, which occasionally visits to feed in the river behind our lodging. While there's no guarantee the owls will appear, the hotel has a comfortable viewing lounge where you can relax on sofas while you wait. If the owl does show up, the large windows let you photograph them from indoors.

Before breakfast this morning, it is worth taking an excursion to the Notsuke Peninsula again, where we will be able to see the deer at their most active. In the early mornings, stags tend to joust right alongside the road. This outing is a unique chance to see them locking antlers during their rut, which lasts from late autumn through to the end of Hokkaido’s winter. We can spend up to an hour here before returning to our accommodation for a late breakfast.

Our accommodation has a number of bird feeders and food platforms to feed local wildlife, so as you enjoy breakfast this morning, keep your camera handy - it’s a chance to enjoy some bonus photography!

After breakfast, we head to Lake Kussharo, found in the Akan–Mashu National Park. Lake Kussharo is the largest caldera lake in Japan and it is a popular destination for migrating Whooper Swans, stopping over in Hokkaido on their journey south from Siberia. In winter, nearly all of the lake’s surface is frozen, save for some parts of the shore where hot spring water bubbles up from underground and warms the sand itself. The migrating swans flock to these points for a warming soak!

Once we’ve enjoyed the swans, we will head for tonight’s accommodation in Kawayu Onsen. You’ll have a chance to relax this evening and experience the natural hot springs at your lodgings.

We’ll have another opportunity before breakfast to photograph the Whooper Swans at Lake Kussharo. The morning light and any change in weather conditions may mean you can capture some quite different shots to what you could the day before.

We’ll return to our accommodation for a late breakfast and, after checking out of our lodgings, we’ll make our way to Tsurui, the final destination on this tour.

Tsurui is famous for the successful recovery of Red-crowned Cranes. Their population has rebounded to over 1,800 birds in the area surrounding Tsurui, with a reasonably high chance to see one even from the main roads.

We will visit the Ito Tancho Sanctuary and/or Tsuruimidai this afternoon, depending on crane activity and numbers, to photograph the cranes and to enjoy their magnificent “dances”, an affectionate display these beautiful birds perform to bond with each other ahead of the breeding season.

After spending a good few hours at the crane sanctuary, we will head to our lodging for the evening. We can warm up at our accommodation this evening with a delicious meal and prepare ourselves for our final early rise tomorrow!

We’ll be up before dawn this morning to photograph cranes on the Setsuri River, their roosting site. As the first light warms their feathers, they’ll take flight to head out to their feeding grounds for today. You may also be able to spot other wildlife here, such as owls returning to roost, eagles heading out to hunt and deer fording the river. It will be very cold on the bridge, so it’s a good idea to wear the same clothes you wore on the eagle cruise.

After we leave the bridge we’ll head back to the hotel to enjoy a quick breakfast before returning to Tsurumidai. Across the road is a local cafe, which has a garden full of bird feeders that attracts all manner of small bird life. Our entry into this special area is included, and we will hang around here until mid-morning to see what shows up at the feeders. You can of course photograph the cranes over the road at Tsurumidai if you would prefer (and the group can be split if anyone would prefer to return to Ito Tancho sanctuary) but we will all reunite just before lunchtime.

After a delicious included local lunch in Tsurui, we will spend our last afternoon of the tour spending the time as you wish, either at the crane sanctuaries, or taking a drive later in the afternoon when foxes and other wildlife become more active again to see what we can find. Alternatively, you can rest at the hotel this afternoon if you would prefer.

Tonight, we'll enjoy our final dinner together to celebrate the memorable experiences we've shared on this tour.

We’ll have a leisurely breakfast this morning before driving for about 1 hour to Kushiro City to complete the tour. We can drop you off at either Kushiro JR Station or Kushiro Airport between 10 am and 11 am.