2018 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan | Whooper Swans in Japan

Apr 04 | Evan | No Comments |

Along with Chris Weston, I escorted a small group of wildlife photographers in Japan in search of Japan’s Winter Wildlife. View the 2018 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan Trip Report to see photos of Japanese Snow Monkeys, Red Crowned Crane, Swan, Steller’s Sea Eagles and whatever else we could find!  If you have come to this post soon after posting, I’ve already posted about the Steller’s Sea Eagles and Cranes will be coming next, for now, enjoy the Whoops Swans (lake) … sorry couldn’t resist!

Of all the animals we photographed in the 2018 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan, the Whooper Swans were the hardest for me in some ways.  To be honest, mainly it was because I wasn’t as interested in the swans and they weren’t as active as the other animals.

 

To come away with photos I was happy with, I really had to think about the story I wanted to tell with my photos of the swans in Japan, elegance, beauty and grace of the swans.  Somehow I did manage to come away with some other interesting photos of the swans as well though! 

2017 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan | Whooper Swans of Lake Kussharo

Mar 18 | Evan | No Comments |

The 2017 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan was going great even with every day being well below freezing!  After spending a few days photographing Japanese Snow Monkeys and then the Japanese Red-Crowned Crane, the group travelled to Lake Kussharo to photograph the Whooper Swans.

The few swans I’ve encountered in my past haven’t always come across as friendly, though I guess like the red-crowned cranes bowing, the whooper swans in Japan were quite tame and didn’t seem to care about humans at all.  Compared to the snow monkeys, red-crowned cranes and stella eagles (coming soon), we spent less time with the swans but as it happened to be the coldest days of our tour in Japan, these days with the swans seemed like the longest!  Everyone said that they still got better photos of the swans than they were expected, so well below freezing cold and all, a great stop for our group photo tour of Japan!

In collaboration with Magic Is Photo Safaris, I escorted a small group of wildlife photographers for a Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan in search of Japanese Snow Monkeys, Red Crowned Crane, Swan, Steller’s Sea Eagles and whatever else we could find!  To see more photos from our photo safari in Japan, view the 2017 Winter Wildlife Tour of Japan Trip Report.