A trip to Japan

The couple travelled to Japan in the Spring of 1907 for Collingwood to study birds. It was regarded in the family as a delayed honeymoon but Florence did not enjoy the sea journey – she was newly pregnant – and must have spent much of her time alone while Collingwood was out with the birds.

Either he did not write a journal - perhaps Florence needed some attention - or it has not survived. But a field notebook is in the archive.

First pages in the field notebook

They returned home on the Trans-Siberian Railway. sparing Florence another sea journey.

Collingwood published an account of his researches in the Ibis in 1908. The initial impetus for the work was to find the eggs of White;s Thrish Zoothera aurea, a bird which had been recorded in Britain, but whose eggs has not been described, but his studies were much wider and half a century later, for this study, he was made an honorary member of the Japanese Ornithological Society.

He reported his firs encounter with White's Thrush as follows.