2018 Best Of #8

Some waders from spring/autumn 2018...................

Black-winged Stilt

I had a spare couple of hours yesterday and checked west of town..............

On this day (May 13th).....................

May 13th 2013.

A Black-winged Stilt near Hakodate 5 years ago today. This is a regular overshoot visitor these days but Spring 2013 saw a big influx into south Hokkaido with birds at multiple sites. Nice to see one in flight too..............

The heat is on

It has got very very hot the last few days................

Some spring waders in the ricefields...........

We managed to find a small number of shorebirds in the padis.............

On this day (May 10th).................

May 10th 2013..................

A Black-winged Stilt in a local park 4 years ago today.

Not a rare bird as such in Hokkaido, I see them most springs these days but it was unusually tame and also very odd to see it in the park...........no water to speak of (or none shallow enough to wade in) and full of people looking at the cherry blossoms. It stayed about a week though................

Stilts in the gloom

There were 3 Black Winged Stilts near Yakumo as we headed home on Tuesday.................

Miiscellaneous

An Eastern Crowned Warbler at Onuma earlier in the week.

From April 29th to May 5th I had a lot of time off and it was all pretty hectic birdingwise and I updated my blog a lot, here's some of the other stuff I photographed in that time............

Some passage waders

It was raining this morning and one of the flooded muddy fields to the north of town had some waders................

2015 Best of #2

Some more shots from the early part of 2015.......................

Off on a trip very soon

Well it's a big day tomorrow.................

Waders in the smog

Strong west winds have blown over hazy smoggy air from China...................

Rain

A Black Winged Stilt from May.

I've had 2 days off and it has been raining for the past 48 hours, hence the old photos. This individual stayed for about a week in Goryokaku Park this spring and was very tame and approachable. Normally scarce this tfar north, There was an influx of the species into the region in klate April to mid May 2013, I saw several birds at several different sites.

I took lots of photos of it, these are from a day when I didn't upload any to the blog.

Not much birding recently. A flock of Red Necked Stint were ate Kamiiso earlier in the week  but not much else, a couple of Great Egret being the only noteworthy species. At Sawara last Monday there was a Wood Sandpiper, Long Toed Stint, Red Knot, 2 Mongolian Plover and the inevitable Red Necked Stints.

I'm 45 later this week. Forty Five!!! I guess it's time for my midlife crisis and yesterday I did what a lot of men do at this stage of their life and buy themselves an expensive toy. Not a Harley Davidson. Something better. A Canon 500 f4 MK2 plus various accessories. The only thing is it won't arrive for another 4 weeks or so................
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A different day, a different Stilt

In between a couple of spells with the Crossbills at Kamiiso 2 days ago I checked the beaches for waders.

There was yet another Black Winged Stilt, this one was actually in the harbour just where the fishermen bring their boats up..................

It was very nervous.

There were some cats eyeing it hungrily so I didn't mind making it skittish..............I may have saved its life as it eventually flew off in the direction of the river.

I could get some more natural looking Stilt shots than the tame one in Goryokaku Park (that one seems to have left now).

As I said before there must have been a big influx of this species into south Hokkaido this year, this is the 5th individual I found this spring. Forgive the deluge, I probably won't see another one for 3 or 4 years.............

There were a few other waders around including 2 Ruddy Turnstone, one of rhich was coming into summer plumage.

The commonest spring wader is always Grey Tailed tattler and there were 7 or 8 of them around.............

One of them was tagged................I suppose I should report this somewhere. A green tag with 'ABD'? I wonder where that could be?

***EDITED TO ADD: according to this link it was banded in Queensland Australia. Ironically I saw my first ever Grey Tailed Tattler in Cooktown QLD in November 1994......maybe this is one of its descendants.......

Still not sure what "ABD" means though.......

I saw a colour tagged Red Necked Stint 2 or 3 years ago but was disappointed to discover it had been tagged somewhere else in Hokkaido!

I saw 2 Red Neked Stint in summer plumage at the end of the day but the light was fading and I had to catch the train home..........................

Most of the gulls/ducks have left but there were still Black Headed and Common Gulls around, all in summer plumage. Here's the latter.............

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Grey Bunting

A male Grey Bunting in Goryokaku Park this morning. It was skulking around and difficult to approach and it kept getting disturbed by the hordes of cherry blossom "viewers".

Still it was by far the best photos I've managed of this species................

It was another productive morning: lots of birds in the park again. Common Crossbill, Japanese White-eye, Eastern Crowned, Sakhalin Leaf and Japanese Bush Warblers, Narcissus Flycatcher (only a female) and lots and lots of Asian Brown Flycatchers..........they were everywhere.

As were Blue and White Flycatchers, I don't think I've seen as many in any spring before...........

The Black Winged Stilt was still there and seems to have no problem finding food in such a strange habitat.............

And here's a picture of it among the dandelions.............

I wonder how long it will stay?

Here's a not very good picture of a bird i've never posted before.

A Brown Thrush.............not rare at all but very shy and an inhabitant of dark forests in Hokkaido in summer. There were 4 of them but I couldn't get close enough and there were so many people around anyway.

At 9am it was like someone flipped a switch and the tour groups hit the park................literally hundreds and hundreds of loud Chinese speaking tourists in even louder jackets. I went home for breakfast...............


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