When most people think of cherry blossoms and birding, most would not even consider photographing together one of the top 10 most populous birds, the Common Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus). One reason being some consider them a pest or simply too common, such as the Mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos), but as a professional wildlife conservationist photography instructor, I believe all flora and fauna are equally important and valuable. Annually, I lead dozens of birding workshops throughout Japan, and my clients flock to my workshops, such as my annual business class Hokkaido Photography tour, which has been fully booked for as long as I can recall. The reason I and my fellow local professional photographers and wildlife conservationists globally have an endless supply of participants for our workshops is that we continuously explore and study the wildlife and landscapes all year round in the regions we live. We build our itineraries in our home regions. My home region extends from Kyushu to Hokkaido, and I do not lead workshops in regions that I have not scouted for at least a few years VS the fly-by-night photo workshops leaders who do a staggering one or two weeks of scouting a new region, WoW!. I grew up in northern Canada, and next year I may be starting up Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) and Polar Bear photo workshops again since our planet’s sun has woken out of its deep slumber and the Northern Lights are dancing in the night sky again.

Due to an Arctic front’ bomb cyclone’ thrashing Japan in March with cool temperatures, this year’s Cherry blossom season across Japan has been unusual. Tokyo and the rest of the Kanto region bloomed about two weeks late. On the other side of Japan, in Niigata, at one of the Top 10 places to view Cherry Blossoms in Japan, Takada Castle in Joetsu City, the annual lighting event of cherry blossoms scheduled for the third week of March was to run until about mid-April, but due to the “Arctic bomb cyclone,” the cherry blossoms did not bloom until just before mid-April. I visit Takada Castle on my annual cherry blossom tour, and I have hotel reservations for 12 people for the next decade at one of my favorite Japanese Ryokans. Several weeks before my annual cherry blossom tour start date, I contacted participants. I explained the weather systems and cherry blossoms’ probable lateness of blooming and social distancing rules, and they agreed to postpone their cherry blossom tour till next year. Thankfully, I was right about the lateness of the cherry blossoms and the C/19 social distancing restrictions. This year I saved my clients a lot of time and money because if they had joined me at Joetsu Castle this year, all they would have seen is the beautiful lighting of the castle, moat bridges, and cherry trees with light pink buds, but not a single flower was at full bloom.

Spring 2022 and Cherry Blossoms blooming unusually late has given me the rare opportunity to enjoy the “Ancient Cherry Blossom Tree” at my traditional Japanese home (Kominka). My kominka was built over a hundred years ago, a 10 ten minute walk to a beautiful beach with magical sunsets and only a 20-minute drive to Niigata City. This is only the second time I have been able to enjoy my Komika’s cherry blossom tree; it was planted even before the house was completed. It’s a HUGE cherry blossom tree, and I have photographed over a dozen species of birds feeding in it. The most fascinating feeding habits have been those of the Eurasian Tree Sparrow. Since the 1970s, the tree sparrow has been in decline globally; from my experience and time across the Kanto region of Japan, including Kanagawa, Tokyo, and other prefectures, the decline of this bird species is between 70 to 90 percent, and only in certain isolated areas has the sparrow been spared by the human footprint.

Thankfully, Niigata has a healthy and abundant Eurasian Tree Sparrow population because of the lack of insecticide use. Kemushi (caterpillars) love to cocoon in the cherry blossom trees. And they hatch during late spring after the cherry blossoms flowers have fluttered away in the wind. These caterpillars cause a lot of skin problems such as rashes, itchiness, redness, and pain. You do not need direct contact with them, the kemushi hairs fly in the wind and attach to human skin, eyes like a micro sliver, but if you come into direct contact with these insects, a much more troubling reaction can occur. And this is why in the Tokyo-Kanto region of Japan and other urban centers, insecticides are sprayed to control their population. Unfortunately, the sparrows, and other birds and large insects, small mammals, and reptiles feed on these caterpillars. At my Kominka in Niigata by the Sea of Japan, we have a healthy population of sparrows, plus dozens of other bird species, some endemic and some migratory, that feed in cherry blossom trees, so our trees do not need to be sprayed, as the wildlife naturally devoured these caterpillars and other insects that are pesky to humans. Since my ancient cherry blossom tree has never been touched by insecticides, we have flocks of Eurasian tree sparrows, warbling white-eye (Zosterops japonicus), also known as the Japanese white-eye or Mejiro, and Brown-eared Bulbul (Hypsipetes amaurotis) that feed on cherry blossoms. The birds take care of the pest monitoring, giving them much-needed healthy organic sustenance instead of having to use pesticides and upsetting the natural balance.

Cherry blossoms such as the Kawazu sakura (Cerasus lannesiana) that bloom in February go untouched by the sparrows because these types of cheery blossoms bloom for about a month in cool weather, and the nectar does not turn into a liquid nectar drink. These sakura flowers are for birds with a longer and more robust bill and who can enter the front or stigma of the flower, reaching the sweet nectar of the flower into the hypanthium where they can extract the sweet nectar, which is closer to sticky nectar vs. sweet liquor. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow must wait till spring to enjoy slurping the nectar of the cherry blossom flower as the over 200 species of ornamental cherry blossom mainly bloom, and when the flowers begin blooming, that is when the sap begins to accumulate in the ovule of the flower’s ovary just above the stem under the flower petals, and when it matures like a good wine or single malt whiskey that is when the sparrows get involved. The sparrows do not enter from the stigma of the flower due to their short bill; they chop off the entire flower with their bill from the stem and quickly slurp down the sweet nectar from the bottom of the flower, which has a chalice shape. The aroma of the nectar and blossom changes as the nectar matures and becomes aromatic, and that’s when all the birds begin making their appearances. Of course, the Mejiro, or Warbling White-eye, the Brown-eared Bulbul, and the Eurasian Tree Sparrow all make appearances at my tree at one time or another as my home’s cherry blossom tree reaches full bloom. Interestingly, I can tell when the sparrows have been visiting when I look at the ground; I see dozens and dozens of the full cherry blossom flowers strewn about, the calling card of the sparrow, but in the Kanto region, the sparrow population is so low, that not many intact blossoms reach the ground. From my experience, the warbling white eye are the least concerned with humans of the avian visitors to my home garden and cherry blossom tree, and as long as I don’t approach too closely, I can photograph them or take video, but the sparrows, on the other hand, are much more human averse. If humans are about, they will avoid the tree altogether; maybe one will fly to a branch, snip off a cherry blossom, extract the nectar, then quickly fly away, the entire process happening in just a few moments. But if you are sitting quietly under a fully blossomed cherry tree or in a bird hide under the tree, sometimes as simple as a blanket, you may experience flowers falling all around you and the chirping of dozens of sparrows above you, happily enjoying the sweet nectar of the cherry blossoms. When I am fortunate enough to experience the flowers falling all around me, the Japanese fable Shita-Kiri-Suzume 舌切り雀, “Tongue-Cut Sparrow,” comes to my mind and makes me ponder on why we use tree pesticides on ornamental trees.

On a side note, Japan is latitudinally long at over 3,000 kilometers, located in the Northwest Pacific Ocean; climates range from the sub-arctic condition in the north to subtropical in the south. There are two distinct ecological lines dividing Japan’s natural indigenous plant and animal life. “The Blakiston’s Line” and the “Watase’s Line.” Due to this uniquely rare ecological condition, Japan is abundantly avifauna rich, making it the perfect location for wildlife, flower, and landscape photographers. Case in point, if you join me on a Japan photo birding workshop or specifically a Niigata photo expedition, you will be able to photograph the tree sparrow as they can be found from Hokkaido all the way down to Okinawa, but they tend to be more plentiful in open rural areas, farmlands, and small woods. 

At home in Niigata, my Nikon Z7 MarkII with my AF-S NIKKOR 800mm f/5.6E FL ED VR is always set up and ready for visiting birds. The Eurasian Tree Sparrow is a small bird, between 12 and 15 cm in length, a dapper bird with a rich brown-colored head with a hint of chestnut or rust. Tree sparrows also have black coloration on their cheeks and two white bars gracing their brown wings. As if Mother Nature felt the need to add more distinction to the tree sparrow, the face is a melange of black from the chin, throat, and ear coverts. Males and females are approximately the same sizes. Their bills vary depending on the season; during the summer months, their bills are a grayish blue, but in the wintertime, they are an unfathomable black. Their legs are a pale brown, and their short tail almost always stands at attention. In my memories of spotting these rascals, I recall almost always seeing their tail cocked as if in search of food or ready to confabulate with a fellow flock member. Tree sparrows subsist on a diet of foraged seeds from the ground or directly from trees, and they also feed on invertebrates like caterpillars, especially during breeding season as the sparrows are feeding their young as well as eating for themselves.