A pre-tour dash from Tokyo  gave Jun and Phil great views of a male Baer's Pochard

We had a day free waiting for the clients to arrive for our Japan in Winter tour so when Jun heard of the Baer's Pochard over near Kyoto we decided to go. Using a combination of taxi, train and small plane  we travelled to Okayama west of Kyoto. We had great views of a male Baer's Pochard swimming on a pond with a number of Common Pochard and even managed to get some reasonable photographs. The following day we met up with some English birders at a bird feeder in Karuizawa. They had come all the way from the UK on a weekend twitch for this bird and were heading back to Tokyo to take the flight back. It made our cross country dash pale into insignificance.