Little did I expect to do some birdwatching at Yoyogi Park in Tokyo when I visited in 2019, as I was there purely for a regular holiday. This was an ad-hoc birding experience because I went there armed with an Olympus OM-D EM-1 with an Olympus M.Zuiko 100-400mm f5.0-6.3.
While taking a lot of street photography, I naturally looked for birds wherever I went. Yoyogi Park was no exception because I had just finished visiting Harajuku and headed here on the weekend.
Birdwatching at Yoyogi Park in Tokyo
Again, this article is created to share my ad-hoc birding in Tokyo experience when I least expected to spot some beautiful Japanese birds around Yoyogi Park. While most of the birds may be common for the Japanese birder, for me, everyone was a lifer.
I started exploring Harajuku around lunchtime, and after doing the whole of Takishita Street and its surrounding, I decided to talk over to Yoyogi Park. You see, I used to work in Tokyo over 30 years ago when I just finished college.
Hence my memories of this place are still strong, as I used to visit Yoyogi Park during my off days to see the street performers there, namely the Tokyo Rockabillies. And this time in 2023, I was in awe when I saw some of them still there, aged along with me and still dancing.
Anyway, after a major memory lane experience watching them, I moved towards the inner part of the park as I knew there were some Sakura Trees there. And Yoyogi Park is one of those places in Tokyo where you can get an early bloom of the Cherry Blossom flowers. And, of course, luck was on my side as I saw a couple of fully bloomed trees.
But Sakura Cherry Blossoms aside, on my way there, I saw several ducks and other common birds, which excited me, and of course, I tried my best to photograph them without any IDing. I just snapped away and moved towards my main target – Sakura flowers.
So, below are random photos of the birds I saw around Yoyogi Park, and I also stumbled across some interesting information about birdwatching at Yoyogi Park. This was done in a notice board style, where the park department put up birding details on the birds sighted in the park. And it was all in Japanese.
Birds of Yoyogi Park
While I explored part of the park, looking for the Sakura Cherry Blossom trees, I encountered several species of birds at Yoyogi Park. They are;
- Carrion Crow (Jungle Crow/Karasu)
- Eastern Spot-billed Duck
- Common Feral Pigeon
- Eurasian Tree Sparrow
- Oriental Greenfinch
- Hawfinch
- Oriental Turtle-dove
You can also refer to my eBird Yoyogi Park checklist, as there are more details for the scientific names and so on.
Conclusion
There you go, my ad-hoc experience of birdwatching at Yoyogi Park in Tokyo was done on a Sunday late afternoon till about 5.00 PM before I headed back to Asakusa.
I believe the next time I visit Tokyo for birdwatching; I will surely come here again, maybe in the Summer or Autumn, to see the many other birds that come here.
