A lull

It's a busy holiday week in Japan..................


We avoided the busy roads north and drove around a lot the last coupe of days, east and west of Hakodate.......................and didn't see much at all. A bit anticlimatic as the start of May is usually one of the high points of the year.

The first Oriental Reed Warbler of the summer, a Mountain Hawk Eagle. small flocks of Black Throated Diver offshore as well as summer plumage Great Crested and Black Necked Grebes, Osprey, Peregrine, Brent Goose, Blie and White and Narcissus Flycatchers, Grey Wagtail, Eastern Crowned Warbler. Mandarin Duck, Japanese White-eye etc etc.....................but none of these were close enough to photograph.

This is a male Chestnut Eared Bunting, a very shy species that is difficult to approach unless they are up high.............

The only waders around were summer visitors. no passage migrants at all: Common Sandpiper, Little Ringed Plover, Lathams Snipe and these Kentish Plover are all local breeders.