이 페이지는 아직 번역되지 않아 영어로 표시됩니다.

Hyoko

Little knownBarely documented in English. This is the kind of place the site exists for.

조사·집필 Hinato

swansHyokoRamsar sitebird watchingAgano

니가타현 · Agano

37.8365°N, 139.2367°E

Hyoko is a small irrigation pond dug in the Edo period that became, almost by accident, the place where wild swans in Japan learned to accept people. In 1950 a local man named Yoshikawa Shigeo began putting out feed and, after four years of the birds ignoring him, got them to come. It was the first successful wild swan feeding in Japan. The pond is now a Ramsar site and a national natural monument, and at the November peak roughly 5,000 swans cover the water.

The swans arrive in early October and stay until late March. Through the day most of them fly out to feed in the surrounding rice fields, so the pond fills at dawn and again at dusk. Feeding by hand happens three times a day in season and is done by a keeper the town still calls the swan uncle.

기본 정보

영업시간

Open at all hours | Feeding at 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM during the wintering season

휴무일: Open year-round

입장료

Free | Waterfowl feed ¥100 a bag

베스트 시즌

Early October–late March for wintering swans; late November for the peak count of about 5,000

방문 소요 시간

1–1.5 hours

가는 방법

교통 정보

Suibara, Agano City. By car from Niigata City; about a short walk from Suibara Station on the JR Uetsu Line. Free to enter, open at all hours. Feeding at 9:00 AM, 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM during the wintering season. Waterfowl feed ¥100 a bag. Four car parks with roughly 350 spaces, all free.

인사이더 가이드

**Dawn and dusk, not the middle of the day.** The birds leave for the rice fields after the morning feed and return in the late afternoon. Arriving at 1:00 PM shows you an ordinary pond. **Late November is the peak count.** Around 5,000 swans. October and March have fewer birds but far fewer people. **The rice fields around the pond are the other half of it.** Flooded winter paddies within a couple of kilometres hold feeding flocks in daylight, and the birds are much less habituated out there — bring binoculars rather than expecting to walk up to them. **Cold, flat and exposed.** There is no shelter at the water's edge and the wind off the Echigo Plain in January is the reason most visits are short. Dress for standing still.

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