My favorite Japan birding tours to lead is my annual Winter Hokkaido Photography tours, offered annually in January, February and March.  Of course is you join my cross country workshop,  I always include, Mt. Fuji, Snow Monkey, and a day at an original Samurai castle and one of Japan’s most holy Shrines with Zen gardens in the valley of the dragons.  Oftentimes, the highlight of my annual Hokkaido Birding Japan photo tour for International visiting photographers are the Steller’s Sea Eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus) and the White-Tailed Eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla). Although these two species of raptors are close cousins, there is always a thin truce between the them, as the seasonally migrating Steller's Sea Eagle ventures down from the Kamchatka Peninsula to enjoy the abundant fishing available in Hokkaido during the winter months.  And the battles between the two eagle factions rage from time to time and can turn brutal, especially when fresh fish is on the table.  In Hokkaido, where these birds are plentiful in winter, young local children and house pets such as dogs and cats are carefully watched when venturing out on their own, and when the fishing is terrible because the local residents know all too well that the Steller’s Sea Eagles are opportunistic hunters, truly ice age relics which had no need to evolve. There are even fables of children going missing during these periods due to insufficient safety protocols being followed. It's far too common that cats, dogs, and even deer go missing.

From time to time, when the weather turns bleak on the pack ice, the birds return to dry land, and I have often seen The Steller's Sea Eagles and White-tailed Eagles along with ravens (C.c. Kamtschaticus,) huddle for warmth to shield themselves from the wind chill when needed.  However, this sympathetic behavior is purely survival and always short-lived.  As soon as fishing resumes, this becomes their primary focus, and as a member of the temporarily peaceful collective catches a fish, a rodent, a rabbit, or any form of edible prey, the battle begins anew, and land campaigns regularly turn into aerial warfare.  Successful hunters immediately try to land and devour their prey, but on many occasions, they take to the air to defend their catch while others seek higher elevations to start their dive-bombing or a sneak attack from below or a blind spot in the hunter’s line of sight to strip the prize away.  This is why one of the main birding events on my Hokkaido Photo Tour takes place from the deck of a ship photographing the Steller's Sea Eagle and the White-tailed Eagles.  On many occasions, participants on my Hokkaido winter tours are so close to the feeding frenzy that we clearly hear the battle cries of the bird as they exchange barbs and slashes.  The conflicts normally end with a clear victor, but sometimes the catch is dropped back into the Pacific Ocean, but when the catch is taken, if close enough, you can hear the stripping of the flesh away from the fish’s carcass and the victorious eagle crushing the bones as it eagerly devours its prize with is razor sharp bill. WoW!, “I thought the first time I witnesses and heard these raptors feeding, up close and personal.”  The Steller’s Sea Eagle is one of the most magnificent and fierce diurnal birds on Earth, which is why they are such formidable hunters, tracking prey since the age of the dinosaurs.