Hyoko Water Kin Park

Suibara in Agano City has an artificial lake famous as a resting place for migrating swans. The first flock migrate from Siberia in early October to over-winter and stay until late March. Around the peak in late November, over 5,000 swans can be seen.

In 1954, the late Juzaburo Yoshikawa succeeded in feeding wild swans for the first time in Japan. He became famous as the first Uncle Swan. In the same year, “the swan stopover site, Suibara” was designated as a natural monument of Japan. In 2008, it was registered in the Ramsar Convention (an international treaty to protect wetlands and waterbirds ecosystem).

Generations of Uncle Swan have been feeding the swans everyday at 9am, 11am and 3pm and you can hear the call “Koi, Koi! (Come, come!)” to this day, to which swans, ducks and other water fowl flock together.