Blakiston's Fish Owl ~ Hokkaido, Japan - 27.12.15

Two sites were visited for Blakiston's Fish Owl and on our visits the owls showed extremely well at both ..

Yoroushi-onsen at Nakashibetsu-cho was our hotel for the night, great place and lovely food ..

Here you can sit in the warm reception area, on large sofa's and wait for the owls to come and feed.

When the birds turn up, they turn off the lights inside and the public crowd around to get a look in ..

Once most had seen the birds and the later it got it became easier with less people, after midnight and you have them to yourself ..

If all your after is just to see the birds and get some record images, then have the luxury of walking upstairs to bed, the this is perfect ..

From a photographer point of view it was awkward, getting a good position early evening with to many people about .. 

The reflections on the glass were also restricting on positioning for shots ..

The birds are close here about 2 meters away so 300mm lens gets you head shots ..

The set-up here could be better, lighting is just a normal garden floodlight and the pool area where the birds feed from is not very natural for images ..

But for close-up headshots its worth a visit ..

F2.8 ~ 1/50 ~ iso 1600 ~ Tripod 

    

Washi no Yado, near Rausu is a great set-up and much more of a photographers site ..

More distance between you and the birds, open windows, strobe lighting and a natural setting ...

Perfect ..

Its heated, you can have a meal, a beer and photograph the owls ..

Whilst here I met Shinji Sato who shared some knowledge about the strobe lighting and camera settings, explaining that the lighting was actually strobe and although seemed constant acted as flash so action shots were possible !!

F4 ~ 1/80 ~ iso 3200 !! ~ Tripod

In for the Kill ..

This was only £18 to photograph Blakiston's Fish Owl ..

Both sites were fantastic and worth visiting for the different experiences and variation of images ..