A quiet Thursday............

The weather has been really nice this week.....................

Obon

A hot humid weekend.............................

Ghost Town

Hardly any birds in town the last 10 days or so. Some birds have started appearing from the south: Oriental Greenfinches, White Wagtails and Black-tailed Gulls in breeding plumage (above).

Last week I saw just 1 Hawfinch and 1 Brown Dipper plus a brief flyover group of waxwings. This week saw even slimmer pickings: 1 male Daurian Redstart only. At Kamiiso the grebes weren't present but there were the usual ducks and gulls as well as 4 Great Egret.

The snow is melting fast. Spring is here, almost.

Quiet period

Late March is sometimes a prime birding time around Hakodate. Crossbills are in the parks or maybe Grebes and Divers are in the ports. Sometimes however it can be rather quiet and 2017 is one of those quiet slow late Marches. The above Black-tailed Gull was one of many individuals pairing off at the moment.

Grey Wagtail, Great Egret and Siskin the only notable local birds the last 2 or 3 days..............hopefully that'll all change in a couple of weeks or so.

Local specialities

Hakodate is famous for seafood and in particular crab...................the Black Tailed Gull above fits in nicely then.

Not much else around, here's some Red Necked Stint, part of a small flock at Kamiiso this morning.

The late March lull

Some years the end of March can be a very exciting time with lots of Crossbills and Waxwings in the parks. geese in the ricefields or grebes and other aquatic birds in the harbours.................

But not this year, today we drove out west to Esaahi where the above Black Tailed Gull was one of the few birds to pose for the camera. the first Ospreys of the year were around at various places, there was a big flock of Rook on the west coast and we saw a couple of Asian Rosy Finch at Esashi too.

Hakodate was very very quiet last week, just a few Hawfinches and Dusky Thrush. Roll on spring................

A long day with almost no birds..............

More of the same..........

A stint in the ricefields

Bewicks Swan

A Bewicks Swan in Kamiiso today. This is somewhat scarce in Hokkaido and I usually only see them flying over. They were part of a flock of 10 tired looking swans obviously taking a break oneir northward migration.

There were 8 Bewicks and 2 Whoopers. Here are the 2 species together with the Whooper in the foreground.

Bewicks is a species I don't really have any photos of................

Not much else around. The common ducks of course, Great Crested Grebe, a couple of flyover Osprey and 5 Great Egret. There were 6 species of gull including this raggedy looking young Glaucous Gull.

The Black Tailed Gulls are a very common species which I usually don't bother photographing but it has to be said they are a very attractive gull...........

There were lots of Black Headed and Common Gulls too. This individual looked a little odd, I think it's a Common Gull but it looks rather dark and I've never noticed that eye/gape colour before.

Not much in town this last week. I walked to Cape Tachimachi on Monday and saw Brent Goose (just 1) and Glaucous Winged Gull on the way. Red Necked Grebe, a few common ducks and a lone Rhinoceros Auklet were bobbing around ofshore. In the forest there were Treecreeper, Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Varied and Long Tailed Tits, Jay and Bullfinch but it was too dark for any photos. Just as I left the forest I saw my first Bullheaded Shrike of the year.

Nearer home has been extremely quiet. Grey Wagtail on the river, a couple of Pochard in Goryokaku Park. That's about it except for this high in the sky Osprey which was a flyover bird in the same park.............

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Golden Week 2012 #1

Asian House Martins at Kikonai yesterday.

A cluster of national holidays known as Golden Week kicked off yesterday and spring well and truly arrived, it has been warm and sunny, indeed I got sunburned today and consumed not 1 but 2 ice creams...............

Yesterday morning started at Akagawa, lots of activity in the forest before the dirt bikers showed up to scare everything off. Lots of Narcissus Flycatcher and Eastern Crowned Warbler were singing, other stuff included Japanese Thrush, Whites Thrush and Long Tailed Rosefinch. In Kikonai and Shireuchi there wasn't so much around.............a lone Bewicks Swan, a couple of Great Egret, a Greenshank, several Little Ringed Plover, Lathams Snipe, Osprey and a few Brent Geese, Wigeon and Red Breasted Merganser offshore.

Lots of Asian House Martin everywhere now...........

At Kamiiso yesterday there were no waders but lots of summer plumage Black Headed Gulls...........these look very exotic here (we usually only see them in winter plumage and there are no other common hooded gulls in Japan). Shame I grew up in England where they are so common birders probably don't even look at them..............

Today I walked the long walk down the beach in Kamiiso to look for waders: all I could find was 1 very flighty Whimbrel. We headed over to Asabu, there were some good birds here but nothing posing for the camera. Pacific Swift, Wryneck, more Osprey and lots of Siberian Stonechat and Chestnut Eared Bunting were singing...........here's one of the latter, a shy bird that flies off as soon as eye contact is established even through a car window.

Back at Kamiiso I waited in vain for the Ospreys to come close and eventually gave up and concentrated on the local Black Tailed Gulls which were courting. Like the Black Headed Gull this is a beautiful bird I maybe take for granted.............the second one here is a Slaty Backed Gull, the common resident large gull.

I don't know if I'm being paranoid but I'm sure I used to take better quality photos of more interesting species than I have been doing lately.

Roy Hodgson? I'm underwhelmed to say the least but he's done well using scant playing resources with mid ranking teams..........maybe he won't be a total disaster with England then.

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Flying fishers

I got up early this morning to try and photograph the Ospreys in Kamiiso. I arrived at the port at about 7.30am, after about an hour I was feeling thirsty and went to the nearest vending machine to get a cold drink, the Osprey chose that exact moment to arrive. I missed it diving (again) but got these shots (very similar to shots on several earlier days it has to be said).

Never mind I thought, I have 5 or 6 hours to wait and it'll be sure to come back several times.

It didn't.

The weather improved, sunshine and blue skies but no more Ospreys. I had to dash to a toilet and nipped over to a convenience store to buy some lunch so I suppose I could have missed it. 

I hung around, not many birds about. A Kingfisher flew very close but too fast for a photo, a couple of Goosander, 3 Tufted Duck, Oriental Reed Warbler, Grey Heron, Black Faced Bunting, Temincks Cormorant, there were still a few Grey Tailed Tattlers and Common Sandpiper too, I also heard a distant Greenshank.

There were lots of Gulls, they were catching fish too.

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A rainy weekend.........

A Black Tailed Gull last week. It's been pouring down with rain all day today and the weather has been pretty crappy most of the week really..........

I spent the last 2 or 3 days scanning the sea for Red Necked Pharalopes and Short Tailed Shearwaters and I managed to see absolutely nothing. I missed the Pharalope migration last year after my wife had a prang and the car was off the road for a couple of weeks. Usually they are offshore in the 3rd week of May (as are the Shearwaters). In 2003 and 2006 they were very close inshore and on calm seas too. No such luck today though.

The only nice day last week weatherwise was Friday. I checked the forest at the foot of Mt Hakodate. Lots of stuff around. Blue and White Flycatchers, Eastern Crowned and Short Tailed Bush Warblers, a few Crossbills and all the usual residents including this Great Spotted Woodpecker at a nesthole.







The male was busy chasing off a pair of Red Cheeked Starlings who seemed to have taken a fancy to the hole. Last summer in Onuma the exact same thing happened and in the end the Starlings ended up feeding the young Woodpecker chick......

Like I say nothing on the sea although the views over the Tsugaru Strait were nice enough.........



Lots of Grey Tailed Tattlers around the coast that day too.......more shots from this day are here.

Not much in town this week. 3 Crossbills surprised me in a small garden near my flat but they flew off before I could take a pic. Lots of Red Cheeked Starlings though.....



Today we looked in vain at some of the ricefields at Ono for waders, absolutely nothing doing. There were some birds around though, Lathams Snipe, lots of hirundines, Oriental Reed Warbler and some Chestnut Eared Buntings.



Oh and lots and lots of Skylarks.



So another busy week with not much birding and no good photos. Hopefully things will improve shortly...........

My galleries are finally up and running at my new homepage.

So I watched Man U win the league last night. For a couple of hours I was willing Arsenal to score. I gained a little insight into what it must be to be an Arsenal fan. It must be a frustrating pastime. They're like a pretty cute foreign exchange student with great body, low cut tops and sexy accent. A big flirt too. It's just a shame that when you get to know her you never get past first base. I dunno, she's a lesbian or devout catholic or something. Nice to look at but ultimately an exercise in futility.

All those times I moaned about Liverpool drawing games against teams like Hull and Stoke? See, I was right. It did cost us the title.

An early visitor

A second year Glaucous Gull at Kamiso last week. This is usually a winter visitor, I don't know if it had been here all summer or not or if it was just an early arrival. I was on the beach looking for waders (nothing doing there) and noticed the Glaucous amongst the regular resident gulls, like these Black Tailed and Slaty Backed Gulls.





We still have car woes so not much travelling around recently. There were several Eastern Crowned Warblers in the trees nest to the local river this afternoon, the first autumn migrants. There were also the usual skulking Night Herons.



Lots more of this species over at Kamiso, here are a couple of juveniles coming into roost.



I watched 'Into the Wild' this evening, the story of a selfish spoilt rich kid with personal issues who ended up starving to death in Alaska. An ok movie marred by that bloke from Pearl Jam contributing acoustic numbers to the soundtrack.

Chelsea have just gone 3-0 up behind me as I type. I'm in a bit of an indifferent mood as regards the footy. I watched Liverpool in Belgium the other night and was almost laughing at how inept they looked (and they weren't much better last night either).

The Canon 100-400 does not make such a good macro lens. These dragonflies are abundant at this time of year.



We're off to our favourite hotel in central Hokkaido for a couple of nights midweek (hopefully the car will be fixed before then). We even have a trip to Asahiyama Zoo planned. The best food I've eaten in Japan plus waders in Mukawa en route and (cheating I know) close-up shots of Polar Bears...........