2017 Best of #8

Some more photos from earlier in the year................

An Ancient Murrelet

I was surprised to find an Ancient Murrelet in one of the ports to the north of town today...............

On this day (April 16th)

April 16th 2010.

An Ancient Murrelet in the nearest port to my house 2 years ago today.

This individual hung around Hakodate Bay for a few weeks and on this day came very close to the quayside as it pursued the hordes of tiny fish that were very common in April that year.........

I went to the same place today actually. 2 years ago there were grebes, divers and many seaduck in addition to the murrelet. Today there were only 3 Red Breasted Merganser, 3 Scaup and a single Red Necked Grebe, all way too far off for any possibility of a photo.

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A bit of spring after a bit of winter...........

A Black Crowned Night Heron on the river near my flat this afternoon, presumably a new arrival.

Today saw bright mild spring weather and in the morning I went down to the nearest quayside (about 25 minutes on foot) to see if anything interesting was on the sea. Last week's Black Throated Diver was still around.

It wasn't as confiding as last week. Whilst I was waiting for it to come closer I noticed what appeared to be a little penguin just a few metres off the harbourside.

It was another Ancient Murrelet, my third sighting in Hakodate in the last 5 months. You have to admit it's cute.

It was very active, diving all the time.

Like I say just like a Penguin except with longer wings.

Other stuff on the sea included Red Necked Grebe, Red Breasted Merganser, Scaup plus both Temincks and Pelagic Cormorant.

A long way out there was an Osprey fishing, here are 2 very heavily cropped images (almost 100% crops in fact).

If today was springlike yesterday most certainly wasn't. I met a nice couple from Colorado, Wayne and Laura, who were passing through Hakodate on a Cruise Liner and had a few hours to stretch their legs onshore. We met at Cape Tachi-Machi and had a walk through the forest at the foot of Mt Hakodate. There were frequent snow flurries and there was a bitingly cold wind. The usual resident Tits and Woodpeckers were around including a female Grey Headed Woodpecker, the first I'd seen in Hakodate for a few years. Due to the nasty weather there weren't so many birds in the forest although we did hear the first singing Japanese Bush Warblers of the spring.

Down in Yachigashira Port I was surprised to find a group of 9 Brent Geese. I thought they would have gone by now, apparently not.

The light wasn't great yesterday, apart from the green seaweed these could almost be monochrome......

There was a  'Tamiyr' Gull on the beach.........

Not much in town. I saw the first Grey Wagtail of the year a couple of days ago, an Osprey flew upstream yesterday, there are still a few Dusky Thrush and Hawfinch around and there were a couple of male Pochard in Goryokaku Park a couple of days ago.

The Night Heron was a nice find today, out in the open in good light for a change.

It flew off pretty quickly though. Shame about the scaffolding in this hot. Damn construction is everywhere.

Flying Night Herons were my first ever shots with the 7D: we have come full circle.

Big weekend of footy coming up, I've given up on Liverpool's 4th place chances so I'll just sit back and enjoy the Manc derby and Spurs v Chelsea.

I lived in North London for 2 or 3 years back in the early 90's. Most of that time was in Arsenal territory (in fact at one stage I lived about 100 metres from their old Highbury ground) but I always had a soft spot for Spurs. One of my co-workers was a big Spurs fan who had connections at White Hart Lane and I sometimes went to games and even went to the Players Bar a couple of times (I saw an injured Gazza drinking with his mates one time). 

The only north London derby I saw was one at Highbury when Spurs won 3-0. It was before an FA Cup game so George Graham put out a reserve side and the Spurs fans I was with went crazy........... if you're a Spurs fan a win is a win. I watched the second half of Wednesday's game, it isn't often Spurs beat Arsenal.

It isn't often Liverpool have beaten anyone this season.

We have a new car! Let's hope the nice weather continues until Sunday (I'm busy tomorrow). The forecast is for rain but weather forecasters are sometimes as accurate as those 'experts' who said  Liverpool would win the League this season.

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So that was winter then........

An Ancient Murrelet in Hakodate Bay this Tuesday morning. I walked down to see if the Brent Geese were still there (they were) and was surprised to see this alcid so close to the touristy area. Not really close (the pic is a fairly heavy crop) but much closer than usual. A nice find, only the second one I've seen in Hakodate. I've seen several others in various locales, late winter/early spring often sees auks visit the harbours and bays but it's usually Rhinoceros Auklets.

There was still some snow and ice around but it was sunny and windy, I'm sure that's the end of winter. A bit of a strange one, this one of 2009/10. More Hoopoes than Crossbill/Waxwings (one versus zero). No Asian Rosy Finch. No influxes of any winter passerines at all actually, not even Brambling or Bullfinch. Not a single Siskin or Redpoll and hardly any Buntings either. Where did they all go? 

It was a good winter for Brent Geese though and today there was a flock of 35 in Irifune Port. They were pretty restless, I'm sure they'll be off in a day or two. They kept flying off and coming back. Nice to get some Brent BIF shots for a change.

Whilst on the ground they were either strutting around squabbling or resting.

I said last week it was the last time to see them this winter but I was wrong.  I'm glad I could get back one more time.

Here's a video of them preening and getting ready to depart. It was windy so the sound was brutal: I replaced it with sound effects.



I tried some Gull sound effects but it didn't sound like the local Gulls at all. See, I have some standards.

Lots of Red Breasted Merganser about, a few Goldeneye and Pintail plus the Harlequin Ducks of course (none of those species came close enough for a photo though). I tried to find the Hoopoe again but couldn't. Apparently there were a few in south Hokkaido the last week or so.

The Coot was still on the river and the usual small birds were still present. Like this Daurian Redstart.

Another heavy crop, it wasn't as tame as it was a few weeks ago........

And this Dusky Thrush was from today.

Today was a bit duller weather-wise. I noticed this duck yesterday but didn't give it a second glance, I assumed it was just a female Mallard. I took a closer look this morning though. It is, I think, a female Gadwall. This isn't so common round here, I only see one or two a year.

There were quite a few Gulls on the river including this individual.

Note the leg colour (yellow). This is one of those 'taimyrensis' type Gulls. Many years ago there were 2 species of Gull. Herring Gulls and Lesser Black Backed Gulls. They were closely related and had lots of different subspecies. Now they have been split into god knows how many different full species and this is an intergrade between 2 of those. Vega Gull and Heuglins Gull to be precise.

It's darker than a regular Vega Gull, such as this one also on the river today.

You can see our bird is clearly lighter than the resident Slaty Backed Gulls (which aren't in a complex that has been split.................yet). the Slaty Backed is the one in the foreground.

So what is it? A Heuglins Gull? A Taimiyr Gull? Soon to ID a Gull you'll need to get a blood sample and sequence its DNA.

Normally I wouldn't care about this scientific waffle but this may be important to me soon. My Hakodate local list is on 195 and I'm eyeing the 200. Stuff like this Gull (and the dodgy Crossbill from last year that I reposted recently) will test my ticking integrity in 3 or 4 species time....

I almost got a nice Long Tailed Rosefinch picture today. A male near my apartment.

F***ing twigs and branches.

I got up to watch Bayern v Man U very early this morning. Whilst I smirked a little at the result I'm now thinking oh god Rooney is injured before a World Cup again. I hope it isn't too serious. Actually it doesn't bear thinking about. It would be a crying shame if the only mark he ever made in a World Cup was on Carvalho's groin. It might also mean England's World Cup hopes rely on someone like Carlton Cole or Darren Bent. Oh dear.

Still, let's be positive. It may only be something like 4-6 weeks out which would mean Man U's season may implode (which would be nice) and he'd be fresh and raring to go in South Africa (which would be even better).

So this weekend it'll be 3 whole weeks without a car, hopefully we'll get our hands on a nice used one next month. God I hope so.......

I noticed the first fuki shoots near my flat, a sure sigh spring has sprung.

By the way I've changed my blog name from 'S.C.E' to 'Stu'. The original stood for 'Stella C Eagle' (oh how witty) but I got tired of that so I'll just use my real name. I've changed the photo too, it's only a few months old. But by god I look cool don't I?

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Colourful birds and grey grey weather......

A male Harlequin Duck near Hakodate dock this morning. I went to a nice spot I know to see if the Brent Geese had arrived yet but there was no sign but the Harlequins were not as shy as usual and came much closer than normal.

Shame about the weather, it's been awful this last week. Rain earlier on and snow the last 2 or 3 days. One day I'll get a photo of a Harlequin Duck up close and in good light.

They were diving for small crabs, as you can see in this picture.

On the way I walked over a long bridge that looked down into the bay and noticed this strange little bird in the distance.

Lousy photo (a 100% crop) but it shows an Ancient Murrelet, a Hakodate tick and #193 on the local list......

A couple of weeks ago I saw lots and lots of Black Legged Kittiwakes at Yakumo. Whilst I was watching them I spoke to 2 birders from the Hakodate branch of Hokkaido University. Kura and Kim. They said they hoped to see a Red Legged Kittiwake (much rarer) amongst all the Black Leggeds. And see some they did as you will see if you click on the links. They must have been blown in by the big storm last Sunday. The birds in question were in Sawara which is fairly near Hakodate (I often go there). From their blogs I note the Rooks/Daurian Jackdaws have returned too.........and in the local paper I noticed  a Japanese Wood Pigeon flew into someone's window in Shikabe.

Not much else around Hakodate for my good self today though. A few Wigeon, Pelagic Cormorant, lots of Dusky Thrush. earlier on in the week saw the usual birds in Goryokaku Park and the local river. Here are some more BIF shots that show the 7D can do it in crappy dull grey snowy weather too...........

Thierry Henri, what a cheating tosser. I didn't watch the game but I've seen the incident on youtube many times now.

I think of 2 times England suffered from extremely  bad refereeing/cheating in my time following football since the late 70's. Maradonna's hand of god of course but also that game in Holland in 1993. The 'do I not like that' game when Koeman scored after he should have been sent off for a penalty that wasn't even given either. It meant we didn't go the 1994 World Cup Finals in the USA which still rankles. Still, we won our only World Cup thanks to a dodgy linesman so I'll shut up there. Glad I'm not an Irish fan though.

Off to Yakumo for a couple of days at the weekend, hope the eagles have arrived and they skowly flap around just like those Great Egrets and Grey Herons.