I visited northeast Hokkaido for the 3rd time in 12 months at the end of May. This is a pretty good birding area with several well-known sites. I was with my wife so it wasn't a birding only trip.
Day 1. We headed out of Hakodate in heavy rain and stopped at the Mukawa River. This is good spot for waders. There were hundreds of RED NECKED STINT (see pic below) as well as Grey Tailed Tattler, Ruddy Turnstone, Bar Tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Dunlin and Little Ringed Plover. Nothing especially unusual although someone has pointed out there may have been more interesting things in amongst the Stints (like Spoon Billed Sandpiper). We got our first Japanese Crane of the trip near the end of the day. We stayed at Urahoro just west of Kushiro. In the forest there were all the common Tits of this part of the world as well as Eastern Crowned and Sakhalin Leaf Warblers, Asian Brown, Narcissus and Blue & White Flycatchers, Siberian Blue Robin, Hawfinch, Brown and Japanese Thrush plus Oriental Cuckoo.
Day 2. We headed east via Kushiro to Cape Kirritappu. This is famous for Tufted Puffins but they seem to be rather difficult to see (I couldn't see them anywhere). Not too much stuff on the sea actually. A few Harlequin Ducks, a couple of unidentified Divers and lots and lots of Slaty Backed Gulls. Land birds were more interesting. A male SIBERIAN RUBYTHROAT was flitting around in the only area of bushland in view and was rather hard to photograph. Siberian Stonechat and Lathams Snipe were abundant and there were also the first White tailed Eagle of the trip, a lone Peregrine and several superb drake Falcated Ducks in the harbour. We stayed the night at Furen-ko, a famous birding location in northeast Hokkaido.
Day 3. An early rise and a walk in the forest. BLACK WOODPECKER was one of 5 Woodpecker species (Great Spotted, White Backed, Japanese Pygmy and Grey Headed being the others). Japanese Robin were singing everywhere, Red Flanked Bluetail were also very common as were many of the species we'd seen earlier on the trip. On the lagoon were more Japanese Crane, a few common waders and Ducks and several White tailed Eagle. We the headed north via Notsuke hanto. This is a long thin spit of land with open sea on one side and a lagoon on the other. JAPANESE CRANE and WHITE TAILED EAGLE were very common here and there were also Mongolian Plover, Red Necked Stint, Eastern Curlew plus rafts of Scaup and Black Scoter offshore. We finished the day off at Shiretoko, a famous national park in thee north of Hokkaido. We came here last autumn and saw several Brown Bears just a few hundred yards from our campsite. Luckily the campsite was protected by a (rather flimsy looking) electrified fence.
Day 4. Around the campsite we got Japanese Green Pigeon, Ural Owl, more Woodpeckers, Pacific Swift, Eurasian Woodcock, more White Tailed Eagle plus the usual Thrushes, Flycatchers and Warblers. Unfortunately my wife had a minor accident (we subsequently discovered she had broken a small bone in her ankle) and the birding pretty much fizzled out. We tried Tofutsu-ko but were too early for the target species (Middendorf's Warbler) and the other local specialty (Yellow Breasted Bunting) appears to be locally extinct. We did get more Cranes and Eagles as well as Long Tailed Rosefinch and lots of Black Browed Reed Warbler.
Day 5/6. We headed home for X-rays across the wide expanse of central Hokkaido through fog and rain. And we had a puncture too just to compound our misfortune!
More info/pics on my blog linked below if you're interested.
Sounds a good trip, Stu.