Still there, still cute...........

The Red Fox family was still around last Sunday.............

Swallows in the Sakura

A very nice spring afternoon saw me in Goryokaku Park..............

A long day...........

 

 

 

 

Some of the common birds around this afternoon in the ricefields on the edge of town. Barn Swallow, Night Heron and Skylark........

All the usual stuff is still present, the most difficult one to photograph yesterday afternoon was this Chestnut Eared Bunting......





I stayed up until 3am to watch England somehow cling on for the draw in the 1st test. Now I'm exhausted and lounging around the apartment listening to the rain outside (at least the rain means a temporary lull in the construction noise).........

Another rainy week in Hokkaido

It was pi**ing down with rain all day today, the weather has been pretty poor again all week. We went out for a drive this afternoon and the Stonechats were still there and I could take a few snaps through the open car window at least.......





I discovered my teleconverter doesn't work so well in poor light, there was a Night Heron walking across the padis that I photographed but the results were very soft and the AF couldn't lock onto the bird and and IS seemed a bit jumpy too.........

Nothing much about really. Here's a very wet Swallow.



Last week the first Spot Billed Ducklings appeared on the river near my flat......



The mortality rate of these ducklings is usually very high. Cats, Rats, Crows all take them I suppose and they seem especially vulnerable when the river swells after heavy rains...........like today.

And there are about 8 or 9 singing Oriental Reed Warblers on the same river. Difficult to get a good shot of, they are very shy despite being a big noisy species......



So the footy season ends with a bit of a whimper. The FA Cup flashed by last night (I was pretty drunk), the Champions League was surprisingly one sided and the end of the Premier League wasn't exactly dramatic either.......lets just hope England can get through next week without any cock-ups.

I wish I could think of something interesting to write but I can't.

At the end of May we usually go away for a 4 or 5 night trip to east or north Hokkaido but because of my wife's new job that isn't possible this year. You can see some bird photos from those trips here.

The big news from the UK seems to be a frumpy middle aged Scottish woman not winning some talent show. I get homesick every now and then but on the other hand I don't have to watch crap like that (or have to talk about it or be forced to listen to others talking about it at work). Now that the footy season is over and my SKY footy package switched off until August my TV won't even be switched on for the next 10 weeks (though I'll watch some downloaded stuff on my computer of course, still got most of Season 4 of Blakes 7 to watch yet..............).

Hi chicks

Summer well and truly here. Nests everywhere. The Great Spotted Woodpecker was at Onuma and the Swallows were up near Niseko.

The Woodpecker was apparently the last of the brood and has seemingly been abandoned by its' parents. Not to worry though.





The female Red Cheeked Starling was still feeding it. Bizarre behaviour. Cross-species fostering. the photos were from a couple of days ago. The last chick looked likely to leave the nest pretty soon (and I guess has probably done so).



The Lotus flowers were out at Onuma and there were a few Moorhens walking across the lilies. No Moorehen chicks yet, strange to think that 12 weeks ago in the UK they had already hatched.........



Today we drove up to Niseko. The coast was fogbound, we stopped at Yakumo (3 Great White Egret, 1 Little Egret and all the common stuff). By the time we got to Niseko it was a beautiful warm summer day.





At the various road stations the Swallows and Asian House Martins were nesting. Difficult to take pics as of course they were nesting under dark ceilings. Very slow shutter speeds with a big slow lens like mine......









Thanks to Julian for lunch (he can bake fantastic bread). We visited him in Hirafu Village in boomtown Niseko. God that place is changing fast. And to think I complain about too much construction here in Hakodate......

Lots of Oriental Honey Buzzard today, here's a crappy record shot.......



Nice sunset on the way home.........



I watched the second half of Italy v France this morning. Sorry my Gallic friends but France are as bad as England. No, worse. Your coach is even better comic relief than second choice Steve with his brolly.

Swallows, Sunflowers and dead Dragonflies

We drove up to Kuromatsunai again today in the rain. The weather has been lousy the last week or so. Grey skies, muggy humid temperatures, rain, thunder. In keeping with the Grey theme the 3 most interesting birds near my flat this week have been Grey Wagtail, Grey Starling and Grey Heron.

The Barn Swallow chicks must have been born since our last visit.






The parents were very busy and completely ignored me snapping away.








In between the showers back down to Yakumo we saw Goshawk, Great and Little Egret, Black Browed Reed Warbler, Osprey, Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Brown Thrush and Common Kingfisher. There were also loads of Pacific Swift heading south all along the coast.

Here's a scene to remind me it is actually summer.






We went to the local festival last Friday. I took lots of photos of random strangers basically. The one below was the best.


A bit different from the Notting Hill Carnival. Hakodate's festival is of course much smaller and is very efficiently organised. Not much spontaneity here. When I first came to Japan I saw a similar summer parade in Iwaki that was fairly impressive if a little militaristic.



I can remember going to Notting Hill Carnival several times in the early 90's. Heavy drinking in the pub beforehand and lots of dope smoking during the actual parade, eardrums assaulted by loud bass heavy music, huge crowds.............god I'd probably hate it now. Once I was so wasted I lay down on the pavement near the Rough Trade shop (is that still there?) as people stepped over me and I thought my head would explode because of the huge speakers on the next block. Amazingly I wasn't robbed. Not that I had anything worth pinching.

I wasn't in as much as a mess as this dragonfly caught in a spider's web. Every August millions of dragonflies suddenly appear. They're everywhere. Red ones. Yellow ones. They don't appear to enjoy sitting atop reeds or flowers posing for photos so this unlucky soon to expire individual was the only shot I could get.



Frustratingly it still isn't clear if the Premier League is going to be on TV or not. I keep getting fobbed off when I call ("we have no information sir.....please check back later" etc etc). A movie I watched last week was 'The Machinist'. I need the same diet as Christian Bale (well for 2 or 3 weeks perhaps).

Hirundines and Chats

We went back to the road station at Kuramatsunai to take pictures of the (Barn) Swallows on their nests but instead got some Asian House Martin chicks only a few feet away from their hirundine cousins. At least 4 in the tiny nest and they appeared almost full-grown. The parents wouldn't feed them if I stood near the nest so I fired off a few shots and let them be.






They seem to breed earlier than the Swallows who didn't appear to be feeding any young yet.



It was a bit chilly down at Yakumo. Not much around here. A female Eastern Marsh Harrier seen from the car window was the bird of the day and there were the inevitable Ospreys fishing on the river and the Heronry was as busy as ever (no decent place to take photos though). These Stonechats posed fairly nicely for the camera.






We finished the day at Onuma. The Ruddy Kingfishers appear to have moved away from the nest (less photographers around and those that remained were a few hundred yards down the road). I could hear an unfamiliar bird song in the forest. A repeated two phrase song. I checked it when I got back and I think it may have been a Siberian Thrush. I've never seen one before (and the forest is so overgrown I don't think I could have located it even if I'd tried). Actually it's the only relatively 'common' passerine likely to occur in south Hokkaido I've yet to see.

After my problems the other day I ordered a new compact digicam. The Fuji Finepix F31fd. It seems to be rated very highly both as a point and shoot and also for digiscoping. Only 100 quid for camera/spare battery/1GB memory card.

Only 2 weeks until the footie season starts. Skyperfect TV (the satellite station here) haven't confirmed they're showing the Premier League yet! Of course all Celtic games are on (they have a Japanese player)............imagine if they have Scottish football but nothing from England. My god.

Mothra outside my front door

A very tame Swallow sat atop a drinks vending machine last week. They were nesting in a service station type area about 2 hours north of Hakodate. A couple of great photo opps of Swallows atop nests were wasted as I messed around trying to get decent settings in macro mode.



Another poor attempt at macro photography was this thing.




Dunno what kind of Moth this is but it's been sitting motionless on the walkway in front of my apartment door for the last 24 hours. If I had a decent macro lens and could be bothered setting up the tripod I could have taken a much better picture. But it's only a moth.

Big ba*#ard though.



It was warm and humid today after 2 weeks of grotty weather . Not much bird activity recently. The Shrike families have fledged. The Oriental Great Reed Warblers have stopped singing. We drove to Niseko last week and this was (until today) the only blue sky I'd seen in ages.




Not much of interest at Onuma last week except mosquitoes. And more lotus.



I watched Japan beat Australia in the Asia Cup last night. Eerily reminiscent of England. Out on penalties in the QFs. I also started and finished the new Harry Potter book. Not that I normally read kiddies books of course. It's my wife's anyway. Last week I had a few days off but had a cold plus the weather was lousy so I caught up with some downloaded stuff on my hard drive. League of Gentlemen seasons 2 and 3.

Around July 22 down the years:

1984 (July 21/25) Penwortham. Corn Bunting, Bullfinch, Spotted Flycatcher were among the (then) common stuff around. 1984! Liverpool League and European Champions. England losing 5-0 to the Windies. A lifetime ago.

1987 (July 25) Seaforth. 8 Gull species including my first ever Med and also Little Gull and Kittiwake. Plus Curlew Sandpiper, Black Tailed Godwit and Ruff.

2001 (July 19-) Rishiri Island in north Hokkaido. We climbed the big mountain on the island (it was brutal). Japanese Accentor and Black Woodpecker were the highlights. Lots of strange stuff singing in the forests near our campsite that I now know to be Siberian Blue and/or Japanese Robin. From the ferry there were Short Tailed Shearwater, Fulmar, Rhinoceros Auklet and lots of Red Necked Pharalope.

2002 (July 26) Leighton Moss. First visit to this well known Lancashire spot for many many years. LOADS more birds than I remember. We only went to that small hide near the saltmarsh and there were 10 Avocet as well as Dunlin and Black Tailed Godwit. I can remember going to that hide in my youger days and there being literally nothing to see. A quick look at the huge Gull colony on Walney later on freaked my wife out.

2006 (July 26) Yakumo. Early wader passage included Red Necked stint, Dunlin, Greenshank and Eastern Curlew. Also around were Osprey, a few summering Scaup, White Throated Needletail and the usual summer passerines