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Sanriku Fukkō NP, Aomori
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Around 30,000 black-tailed gulls nest on Kabushima, a National Natural Monument since 1922. Hachinohe calls it Japan’s only breeding site where visitors can watch nesting birds at close range.
A gull dropping can count as lucky “fortune from above”: Kabushima Shrine issues a Kaiun, or good-luck, certificate if one lands on you. Another local luck ritual circles the island 3 times.
A 2015 fire destroyed the shrine, including 56 gull ceiling paintings made by 115 local sixth-graders. Rebuilding paused during nesting season each year, and the restored shrine reopened in 2020.
The gull’s catlike cry gave it the Japanese name umineko, “sea cat.” The chorus at Hachinohe Port and Kabushima was selected for Japan’s “100 Soundscapes to Preserve,” celebrating memorable local sounds.
At the annual Kabushima Festival, a gull-decorated mikoshi is carried down the shrine steps during nesting season. Festivalgoers can also compete to imitate the umineko’s distinctive catlike cry.
A shrine tradition traces Kabushima’s Benzaiten worship to Inubōmaru, an exile who reportedly thought the island resembled Enoshima, his home, and enshrined the goddess here.
Hachinohe fishers traditionally regarded umineko as messengers of Benzaiten, believed to point the way to good fishing grounds. The birds’ place in local faith grew directly from life at sea.
Wild rapeseed flowers, once called “kabu flowers” here, turn the island yellow in May; they are one explanation for its name. Kabu also sounds like “stocks,” so visitors pray for rising shares at the shrine.
Umineko arrive at Kabushima from late February, lay eggs from mid-April to mid-May, and hatch chicks in June. Most leave after breeding in August, so the island’s famous chorus is seasonal.
Look up inside the rebuilt shrine: its ceiling carving shows 5 heavenly musicians, the central figure holding a turnip flower as gulls fly off to fulfill prayers. It links Kabushima’s flowers, birds and faith in one image.
Kabushima’s Benzaiten statue has 8 arms holding a bow, sword, axe, snare, arrow, mallet, spear and jewel. It’s a strikingly martial image of a goddess also associated with music and the arts.
A bridge first connected Kabushima to shore in 1919; wartime reclamation finally joined it to the mainland by 1943. The landform became a peninsula, but the name “island” stayed.
On March 11, 2011, tsunami water surged across Kabushima, reaching a maximum inundation depth of 5.3 m; the shrine was spared. A marker on its approach stairs records how high the water rose.
Each umineko pair holds a territory of about 1 m², according to Aomori Prefecture. On an island just 1.8 hectares wide, the noisy colony is a remarkably tight patchwork of nesting neighbors.
Kabushima’s bird sanctuary has a wartime chapter: the Japanese Navy built military facilities on the island, and U.S. forces bombed it on July 15, 1945. The former island had become a strategic stronghold.
