Day 8: Spent the morning at Kushiro looking for Tancho (Japanese Crane). Afternoon flight to Haneda. Overnight at Tokyo.

Mission: To view the Japanese Crane (Tancho)
Difficulty: High
Success Rate: Low

It will be an intense day for us. We had taken a 4 hour train ride the day before to Kushiro, a small fishing village famous only for 2 things... a fishing village and a place where you might see the Japanese Crane or better know in Japanese as Tancho.

The day before we had gathered some intelligence from the local Tourist centre as well as the hotel which is the best site to visit, with the highest probability of seeing one of these Japanese Crane (Tancho). Their opinions were mixed, but they did tell us what was the best time to go... late mornings is the recommended sighting times.

You could see the list of location where you might see these Cranes here.

Our schedule was tight, and we only had the morning for our mission. Our flight back to Tokyo was scheduled at 3:20pm. Originally we had planned to visit two seperate location, hoping to catch a glimpse of these Tanchos.  But due to the latest intel that we received, it is best that we arrive at our target location late morning.

We spent the morning walking around the small town of Kushiro. Everywhere we walked, we were reminded that this is the place to visit if you wanted to see the Tancho. Posters, man-hole covers, even the street lamps had the Crane design.

Our hotel was situated next to the river, opposite the Kushiro Fisherman's Wharf (Moo). We spend a few minutes walking along the river bank capturing these stunning photos. The weather was great, nice and sunny. The town was simple, like one of those small neglected towns. It didn't feel very commercialise.

We went to the Kushiro Fisherman's Wharf (Moo) hoping to get some local fresh sushi for breakfast, unfortunately it was nothing like the Hakodate market that we had visited. It was a very small and simple market. The ground floor area was probably half wet market and another half selling food and some touristy stuff. The rest of the building was also a let down, with of an interest or anything commercial to see. If you wanted a little history about the Kushiro, or more knowledge about the Fishing industry, you may walk through some of these exhibits setup on the upper floors.

We headed over to the bus station early. We didn't want to miss the bus, as their bus schedule had like a 2 hour cycle. Please check this site for local bus schedule (Use the Google Translator). Since we had already picked our destination, we had used this bus line to get to our destination.

Our scheduled departure time from the Kushiro Station (Next to the JR Station) is at 10:25AM, arriving at our destination Tsurumidai (鶴見台) by 11:18AM. And we had to depart Tsurumidai at 12:08 heading back to back to Kushiro. Schedule was really tight. We could NOT afford to miss the bus, or have the bus breakdown on us.

Our bus ride to our destination was a long one. We had to go through all town area followed by the outskirts before arriving at what looked like a huge flat lands (wetlands). Our ride felt like eternity. Filled with anticipation, we don't know what will do if we do miss the sighting of the Tanchos.

Fortunately, we did see one of these Japanese Crane walking as our bus passed a field. Not only were we excited but another Japanese couple on the bus too was equally excited. I just realised that some of these Japanese visitors probably travelled hundreds of miles too, like us to see these great Japanese Crane.

Mission Accomplished?

NO, Eelin was not satisfied of just catching a glimpse of these birds. We travelled so far, from Sapporo, to this corner of Hokaido just to catch a glimpse? Boy would we be dissapointed if we only had a glimpse....

As we near our destination, our hearts began to beat faster. Filled with anticipation, we kept a lookout throughout the open land, but not a crane in sight....

When we finally arrived at our destination, we saw a field filled with Tanchos. Easily 50 of them, roaming the field, feeding on grains the locals had left for them. Lots of Japenese were at the fence with their Zoom lense trying to capture these Majestic Birds at its very best, in Nature.

Mission Accomplished!

It was a beautiful sight. We could see these Japanese cranes feeding. Some were flying in, while others flew away.

For the first time on the trip, I actually regreted not bringing along a 70-200mm F2.8 L lens.... then again I don't own one, but I can't imagine carrying that monster all around Japan... a little too heavy. We were able to capture some of these close-up photos with the Canon G9, which had a slightly longer reach than my 17-55mm lens (28-80 equivalent).

Here Eelin capture these birds as they flew away. These cranes being huge birds, needed a long runway to take off. They have to run for a few meters before gaining enough speed for the take off... like a little clumsy bird....

Here is a photo that we captured as it flew over us from across the street. Just magnificent.... the birds had a wing span of about 2 meters long!

Here we have a photo about the history of the Tancho. You may click on the image above to view and read it in higher resolution. Summary below:-


The Tancho is also known as a bird of good omen. The crane is about 5 feet tall with a wing span of 6 feet weighing about 7-12kgs. By about 1910, people thought that this birds have been extinct due to indiscriminate hunting. However in the 1924, they discovered 20 Tanchos living in the Kushiro Marsh. The government together with the locals decided to start a protection operation as well as provide food to these Cranes during the severe winters, where food for both the birds and humans were scarce. Today, there are more than 600 Tanchos living in the area.

For anyone who visits Hokkaido in winter, we would recommend them to take the trip to Kushiro to see these majestic and beautiful Japanese Cranes (Tancho).

It is time to head back now. Our time at Tsurumidai only lasted us 50 minutes. But the journey to get here from Sapporo was a long but worthwhile one.

When we arrived at our hotel, we quickly got our bags and headed for Kushiro Fisherman's Wharf (Moo) across the street. The shuttle Bus service from Moo to the airport was synchronized, meaning that the bus service only ran if there was a scheduled flight. The bus was scheduled to leave Moo about 1.5 hours before the flight scheduled time.

Our flight arrived at Haneda at about 5PM. Since it was Sunday, we got a special weekend pass (¥500/adult) that allowed us to head to our destination without pay too much.

We decided to stay at Shinjuku area as it was quite centralised. We checked in a Hotel Sunroute Takadanobaba Hotel. It was situated 2 minutes away from the Takadanobaba JR Station.

You can get a map of the Tokyo Subway map (Toei Line & Tokyo Metro Line) here.
And also the JR Train map here.

Please note that the JR and Subway are run by different companies. Even the subway is ran by at least 3 companies, but they do have a pass that allows you to share and use all of their subway services as a group.


We wondered around the area near our Hotel looking for a meal. And also in the smaller shopping district around our hotel.