Mark Brazil

Mark Brazil is a British-born ornithologist, author and tour leader based outside Sapporo on Hokkaido, Japan. A field biologist who earned his doctorate studying the behavioural ecology of the Whooper Swan in Scotland and Iceland, he has been guiding nature-focused tours of Japan since 1983 and settled in Hokkaido in 1998. He is the founder of Japan Nature Guides, a consortium of experienced guides and publishing imprint, and a former professor of Biodiversity and Conservation at Rakuno Gakuen University. Mark is the author of the standard works on Japanese and East Asian birds, including The Birds of Japan (Helm, 1991), A Field Guide to the Birds of East Asia (Helm, 2009), the Field Guide to the Birds of Japan (Helm, 2018) and Japan: The Natural History of an Asian Archipelago (2022). His long-running Wild Watch column in The Japan Times became the longest single-author natural history column in the world. Today he leads small private and group tours across Hokkaido, with signature winter trips to eastern Hokkaido for Blakiston's Fish Owl, Red-crowned Crane and Steller's Sea Eagle, and also leads occasional Japan departures for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours.