This morning was sunny so I took a walk down the river to see if the egrets were still around. They most certainly were, TEN of them to be precise, 10 Great Egret on the pokey little 'river' in Hakodate!
One of them seemed to be quite a bit smaller than the others (a different subspecies perhaps?) but they were all Great Egrets, the Little Egret must have left in the 2-3 weeks since I was last here.
They were catching little tiddlers in the shallow river........
Hardly seems worth the effort, unless the small fish are especially tasty to an egret.......
These typical BIF shots show the egrets were in the middle of town.........
There was one Grey Heron in with the egrets and other stuff around included 7 species of duck on the river (15 or so Tufted Duck, 2 Pochard, 5 Scaup, 1 female Goldeneye, several Mallard, lots of Teal and Spotbilled Ducks), Kingfisher, Grey Wagtail, Dusky Thrush, Sparrowhawk and Daurian Redstart. In Goryokaku Park there were 5 Coot and 5 drake Pochard on the moat (which still hasn't frozen).
Otherwise a very quiet week, the weather was pretty lousy most of the time and I was also quite busy with work. I've heard both Snow Bunting and Rough Legged Buzzard have arrived in south Hokkaido, these 2 are my top 2 targets this winter, they've both proved to be bogey species for me, hopefully I can see them soon..........
Thanks for clicking this link.......
Wow...those 2 images with the egret head in the water are just awseome! Great work Stu ;)
ReplyDeleteReally admire the first flight shot and "head in the water" - really different! Was too jealous to comment on Harlequin shots - in my opinion they looked very natural and the water contrasted nicely with them.
ReplyDeleteI don't do much to my shots (lord knows they could do with it!) because I have no clue what to do other than sharpen.
Beautiful photos, Stu.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comments...........
ReplyDeleteGreat study. Good work with the exposures and timing.
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