2017 Best Of #4

Some more shots from earlier in the year: these are all from March and early April...............

2017 Best Of #2

Some shots from Jan/Feb this year.............

And a female........

The Bullfinches were more spread out on Friday and not as photogenic as previously..............

Also around were Brambling, Hawfinch and a couple of Redpoll. Still no Crossbills, looks like 2017 may be a crossbill-less year..........

Their work is not complete.......

Well they're still hard at it...........

A Friday morning walk

I had a spare couple of hours on Friday morning............

A quiet Friday afternoon

I had a couple of spare hours yesterday afternoon..................

Still in the cherry trees

A male Bullfinch on Thursday. Still small groups of them are snacking on the cherry blossom buds around town though none as photogenically as last week.

Also in the big park near my flat were a flock of 20 or so Hawfinch, a lone Redpoll, some Coal Tit, Dusky Thrush and a single Nuthatch.

We're away for 2 or 3 nights over the weekend, hopefully some new birds to post about next week.

Still gorging on the sakura

I took a walk this afternoon and the Bullfinches had relocated a little downstream.............

More Bullfinches

Some more Bullfinch shots from earlier in the week............

Some (very) early signs of Spring

I had a bit of spare time yesterday afternoon............

Some more Bullfinches

Some Bullfinches at the start of a very long drive around SW Hokkaido.................

Return of winter

A male Bullfinch in Kamiiso this afternoon...................

2014 Best of #2

Well another quiet week combined with a heavy cold means no new photos to post so here's some more stuff from earlier in the year............







In late February we went to east Hokkaido...............and I took rather a lot of photographs.

East Hokkaido 2014 #5

After the eaglefest at Rausu I didn't do so much birding...................

Different week same old Bull*****s

I spent the last couple of days looking for crossbills but couldn't find any anywhere. In fact just about the only birds around were the Bullfinches again.A bit repetitive, my only photos recently seem to be either Bullfinches or Nuthatches.............

There were only 4 of them, there were 6 or 7 last week. They have decimated the cherry blossom trees.

The snow is now the consistency of sorbet. Hopefully it will be mostly gone by the end of next week.................

These photos are from yesterday, the first time I'd seen blue skies in quite a while.

Thanks for clicking this link.......
人気ブログランキングへ

Apprehended

So ends another week of crappy weather, the snow is now slush (which refreezes at night) and daytime temps are well above zero (no long underwear necessary this week).

This lone Bohemian Waxwing was in the park near my flat yesterday afternoon. It came to ground pretty close but the light was just awful (in fact it was raining)..

On other local blogs there quite a few pictures of Bohemian Waxwing a couple of weeks ago but they never appeared in my part of town. I guess this is a straggler................I had a longish walk this afternoon but couldn't find this individual or any other waxwings anywhere.

Whilst I was photographing the Waxwing an odd looking young chap came over and asked what I was doing. I pointed out the waxwing in the tree. He then got out his Police ID and started questioning me! My name, where I lived, why I was in Japan etc. He took my ID and called in the station to do a check. He said that 'warui hito' ('bad people') sometimes came to this park to take drugs.................this was news to me, I've never seen any Japanese person taking drugs in this or any other park in my 13+ years here.

Luckily my Japanese isn't strong enough to attempt a little sarcastic banter ("yeah sorry officer I left my drugs at home today"). I was the only person in the park and it was knee deep in melting snow and I had a camera with a big expensive lens.................how did he come to the conclusion I was up to no good?

Weirdly he then started asking me how I liked Japan and if it was colder in England................

The Bullfinches relocated to another street, one a bit more difficult to take photos on as it is fairly busy with big banks of meting snow under the trees. These photos were taken a couple of days ago in a brief window of sunnyish weather.

Not much else about. Goosander, a couple of Goldcrests in the pine trees, a flyover Peregrine, a few Dusky Thrush and Daurian Redstart...................

Freezing temps and snow forecast to return tomorrow with blizzards on Sunday..................looks like another quiet weekend.

Linked to WILD BIRD WEDNESDAY


Thanks for clicking this link.......
人気ブログランキングへ

Foreigners coming over here stealing our cherry blossoms

The Bullfinches were still around on Thursday and I got a better look at this individual.

This is a different subspecies than the other male (in the previous post). The other male in the flock is the subspecies griseiventris which has dark pink cheeks. It is the common subspecies fround in Japan. As you can see this one is quite different.

This individual has a pink breast and is (I think) the the rosacea subspecies from Korea (or possibly cassinii from China).

I hope they have left some cherry blossoms to bloom this spring. Japan has territorial disputes with China and Korea, there are worries about pollution drifting across the Japan Sea from mainland China and now even the birds from mainland east Asia are destroying the sakura. Shintaro Ishihara would have a fit if he knew.

Thanks for clicking this link.......
人気ブログランキングへ