Hokkaido Photography - A Wildlife Paradise

Any voyage into Hokkaido’s natural world has the potential to be absolutely phenomenal for visiting photographers to Japan. The only concern is actually capturing the wildlife that you are chasing. For example, the Red Ezo Fox of Hokkaido is quite particular about the hunting grounds it will patrol as well as the times when it will poke its head out of its den to begin the necessary hunt. This is where years of experience in the field chasing the perfect photograph comes into play. I’ve been visiting for the past two decades, so Hokkaido’s nature and wildlife are much easier for me to predict having been among it for so long.

The mother foxes give birth to their kits in the early spring, so by autumn, there is potential to see young adults recently broken away from their mothers and hunting independently for the first season. If you see a young adult or a full grown Ezo Red Fox, you will marvel at their lustrous red coat and witness the contrast of their fur and the stark whites and blacks of their natural surroundings.

Having spent more than 20 years in Japan, certain photographic variables become controllable. Even in the absence of wildlife, however, the winter in Hokkaido yields so many winter landscape photo ops that you can see the winter forests, where the leaves have been replaced with a thick layers of snow and ice, beauty manifested in an entirely different manner.

The fox is only one of the many types of wildlife that call Hokkaido home; while visiting you can also photograph White-tailed eagles, Ezo Sika Deer, Black Kites, Whooper Swans, The Steller's Sea Eagle plus others.