is a

tidal flat Mudflats or mud flats, also known as tidal flats or, in Ireland, slob or slobs, are coastal wetlands that form in intertidal areas where sediments have been deposited by tides or rivers. A global analysis published in 2019 suggested that tidal fl ...

beside the

Port of Nagoya The , located in Ise Bay, is the largest and busiest trading port in Japan, accounting for about 10% of the total trade value of Japan. Notably, this port is the largest exporter of cars in Japan and where the Toyota Motor Corporation exports most ...

in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. A campaign to stop further development has made Fujimae a symbol of the

wetland conservation Wetland conservation is aimed at protecting and preserving areas where water exists at or near the Earth's surface, such as swamps, marshes and bogs. Wetlands cover at least six per cent of the Earth and have become a focal issue for conservation ...

movement in Japan. Once celebrated in the Man'yōshū, the remaining of wetlands have been designated a Ramsar Site.

Wetlands

The tidal flat is at the mouths of the Shōnai, Shinkawa, and

Nikkō is a city located in Tochigi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 80,239 in 36,531 households, and a population density of 55 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . It is a popular destination for Japanese and ...

Rivers by the Port of Nagoya. Land reclamation projects started during the

Edo period The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional '' daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was characte ...

and continued until the 1980s. A plan announced in 1981 to use the Fujimae tidal flat as a waste disposal site was finally abandoned after a long campaign in 1999. Due to greater awareness of their function, there are now moves to return reclaimed flats to their original state.

Birds

The

great cormorant The great cormorant (''Phalacrocorax carbo''), known as the black shag in New Zealand and formerly also known as the great black cormorant across the Northern Hemisphere, the black cormorant in Australia, and the large cormorant in India, is a w ...

, eastern spot-billed duck, and

osprey The osprey (''Pandion haliaetus''), , also called sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor reaching more than in length and across the wings. It is brown o ...

are common throughout the year. The flat is also visited by a number of

migratory birds Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Many species of bird migrate. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by ...

, including the

Eurasian curlew The Eurasian curlew or common curlew (''Numenius arquata'') is a very large wader in the family Scolopacidae. It is one of the most widespread of the curlews, breeding across temperate Europe and Asia. In Europe, this species is often referred ...

bar-tailed godwit The bar-tailed godwit (''Limosa lapponica'') is a large and strongly migratory wader in the family Scolopacidae, which feeds on bristle-worms and shellfish on coastal mudflats and estuaries. It has distinctive red breeding plumage, long legs, ...

dunlin The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader, formerly sometimes separated with the other "stints" in the genus ''Erolia''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown ...

grey plover The grey plover or black-bellied plover (''Pluvialis squatarola'') is a large plover breeding in Arctic regions. It is a long-distance migrant, with a nearly worldwide coastal distribution when not breeding. Taxonomy The grey plover was forma ...

northern pintail The pintail or northern pintail (''Anas acuta'') is a duck species with wide geographic distribution that breeds in the northern areas of Europe and across the Palearctic and North America. It is migratory and winters south of its breeding ...

little tern The little tern (''Sternula albifrons'') is a seabird of the family Laridae. It was formerly placed into the genus ''Sterna'', which now is restricted to the large white terns. The genus name is a diminutive of '' Sterna'', "tern". The specific ' ...

, and

greater scaup The greater scaup (''Aythya marila''), just scaup in Europe or, colloquially, "bluebill" in North America, is a mid-sized diving duck, larger than the closely related lesser scaup. It spends the summer months breeding in Alaska, northern Canad ...

. Some 172 bird species have been observed in the area in recent years. Eleven thousand shorebirds and a total of thirty-one thousand

waterbirds A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

were recorded in March 2000. File:Phalacrocorax carbo hanedae flocks and Meiko Nishi Bridges.jpg, Flocks of

File:Meiko-Chuo Bridge from Fujimae s2.jpg, Flocks of

black-headed gull The black-headed gull (''Chroicocephalus ridibundus'') is a small gull that breeds in much of the Palearctic including Europe and also in coastal eastern Canada. Most of the population is migratory and winters further south, but some birds r ...

and

File:Charadrius mongolus stegmanni eating ragworm.JPG,

Lesser sand plover The lesser sand plover (''Charadrius mongolus'') is a small wader in the plover family of birds. The spelling is commonly given as lesser sand-plover, but the official British Ornithologists' Union spelling is "lesser sand plover". The genus ...

eating ragworm

Man'yōshū

In the third volume of the Man'yōshū there is a poem by Takechi Kurohito: "The cry of the crane, calling to Sakurada; it sounds like the tide, draining from Ayuchi flats, hearing the crane cry". Ayuchi is the original form of

Aichi is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,552,873 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the west, Gifu Prefecture ...

, and the Fujimae tidal flat is all that remains of the earlier Ayuchi-gata.

References

External links

Fujima-higata
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fujimae-Higata Landforms of Aichi Prefecture Ramsar sites in Japan Wetlands of Japan

Wetlands

Birds

Man'yōshū

See also

References

External links