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Ogasawara NP, Tokyo
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Ogasawara’s land-based whale-observation sessions began in 1990. Today, during humpback season, whale-association staff meet visitors at this lookout to share a short lesson and scan the sea together.
The walk up passes remains of Ōmura’s 2nd Battery, built as part of Futami Port’s prewar defenses. Its guns were meant to obstruct enemy ships approaching from the west.
On rare sunsets, the Sun’s last sliver can flash green here. Earth’s atmosphere bends different colors by different amounts, briefly leaving green visible as the disk sinks below the horizon.
A former weather-station building stood on this lookout site. Chichijima’s weather record began in 1896, paused after staff evacuated in 1945, and resumed under JMA in 1968 after a handover from the US Navy.
Look skyward for the Ogasawara buzzard, a hawk subspecies found nowhere outside these islands. The Environment Ministry estimates about 150 mature birds across its range, and the species can be spotted from the lookout.
The adjoining Mikazuki trail passes Ogasawara fan palms, whose leaves were once essential thatching material for island roofs before World War II—a practical local use for a distinctive palm.
