Pit Stops

The local fields had some visitors taking a short rest...............

Some grey visitors

Onuma was pretty quiet yesterday but the Whooper Swans briefly had some company...............

On this day (December 18th)...................

December 18th 2014.

A Bean Goose at Onuma 3 years ago today. Stragglers from the big goose flocks which winter further south are sometimes seen in winter in south Hokkaido. This one joined the Whooper Swan flock in December that year and stayed all winter.........................

A grey Sunday in late autumn

A Eurasian Starling to the north of town this morning..............

Red and Blue

2 red and blue species that commonly occur on the local coasts...............Harlequin Duck and Blue Rock Thrush.

February begins

A low key start to February in Onuma...................

A night in Onuma................

We spent Sunday night in Onuma................

A quiet Sunday in Onuma............

A pair of Black Woodpeckers in Onuma this afternoon..................

Bean Goose

Autumn Geese

A juvenile White Fronted Goose at Tomakomai last weekend.

After the pelagic trip we visited Utonai Ko, a large shallow lake near Chitose airport. It is famous as a resting place for geese in autumn on their way south. There were 2 species: White Fronted and Bean Goose.

99.9% of them were in the middle of the lake.

They feed in the rice stubble in the local padi fields I guess. We see both species near Hakodate but never in great numbers........................

We've been visiting the lake for over 6 years and there is one resident Bean Goose, presumably crippled. It is tame and spends its days with a group of similarly injured Whooper Swans.

Sadly it would call to the birds in the middle of the lake but they ignored it................

In the same area were 2 tame White Fronted Goose, as far as I know these are wild (I've never seen them before so close).....................perhaps they were just mega bold ones?

There was also a small tame flock of Pintail in various stages of moult.

Not much else around. A big flock of swans were on the other side of the lake, there was a lone Great Egret, a few Wigeon, some Little Grebe and Tomakomai's famous Magpies nearby.....................

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Christmas in Onuma

A female Black Woodpecker at Onuma late this afternoon. It was another cold day, lots of snow on Christmas Eve but this afternoon te sun came out.

The Woodpecker was pretty tame and kept on feeding whilst I took lots of photos, most of which looked very similar. It was quite hard, it was usually against the light, at a bad angle and constantly moving. This was the most interesting pose.

But the other shots are very samey. 

Somebody had left out lots of food for the tits and nuthatches so they weren't especially tame and I couldn't get any decent shots of them in the snow.

2 Bean Geese had joined the small flock of Whooper Swans..........

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On this day (February 11th)....................

11th February 2009.

These 3 Bean Geese overwintered at Yakumo, I took this picture from the busy bridge on Route 5 over the river near the coast. I was waiting for eagles to fly over but there were other species around, not only these geese but also a lone Lapwing (a scarce bird up here).

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A short trip

We just got back from a short trip to the Tomakomai area. We stopped at Utonai-ko, a well known bird reserve near Chitose Airport. This Bean Goose is wild but tame, I think it's the same individual we've seen several times before here. The Whooper Swans are also wild, some of them are sick or injured birds who couldn't make the spring trip north........

There were also small numbers of Pintail, presumably the first arrivals of the winter.

Other stuff here included Siberian Rubythroat (hiding in the bushes) and the usual common stuff including several Great Egret.

We also checked out the mouth of the Mukawa River. This is a site we visit once or twice a year, it's famous for waders. However the area seems to be under some kind of development, most of the wetland has been drained. This has been going on the last couple of years. It's a bit sad, I really hope the reason is not just somebody is using up government taxes to create useless unnecessary construction projects.

The only things of interest here were Eastern Marsh Harrier and an unidentified kind of Snipe.

Waders were thin on the ground everywhere. Apart from the odd Common Sandpiper the only shorebird we saw during the whole 2 days was this bedraggled scruffy looking wader that I thought was just a Dunlin at Oshamanbe.

But thanks again to Unravel who pointed out it is fact a Curlew Sandpiper....................

One possible reason for the lack of waders on the beaches were the hundreds (or thousands) of fishermen trying to snag Salmon, they were lined up on every beach from Hakodate up to Tomakomai.

We stayed in a cheap hotel in Tomakomai. This was due to the fact this week is a big holiday in Japan so all the decent hotels in the general area were either booked up or too expensive.

Dinner wasn't included in our hotel so we went for a major eating and drinking session at a nearby izakaya. This was snapped with the camera on my cellphone.

Tomakomai is not an attractive city. A gloomy industrial town. 8 years ago I had to work there for a couple of weeks, it made Hakodate look like Venice or something. It is surrounded by very nice countryside though: mountains, forests and lakes. Here's a view of the smoking top of the nearby volcano Mt Tarumae.

We went to one forested area just north of the city that is famous for Black Woodpecker and Crested Kingfisher. We heard the former but saw nothing of the latter (although we did see a Common Kingfisher). Actually the forest looks great for birds but as today was not in the best season for woodland birds plus it was a national holiday with gorgeous warm clear autumnal weather so the trails were packed. I reckon an early morning visit in May would more than compensate for having to stay in a hole like Tomakomai.

Lots of Japanese Grosbeaks were up in the treetops but they remained up there and didn't come down for a photo. I borrowed my wife's macro lens to try and shoot some of the many bugs...........

Not so good I know.

Macro is hard. DOF is so difficult to gauge. My camera isn't so great for manual focusing (it has a smallish viewfinder). Bugs move and flowers/twigs blow around in the wind. The macro lens my wife has (the Tamron 90mm one) is OK but the AF is lousy and of course it doesn't have IS. If I had it on a tripod with liveview to help with manual focus the results may have been better. I now have a lot more respect for macro photographers.

Wow there are loads of different kinds of insects. I had no idea.