2017 Best of #8

Some more photos from earlier in the year................

A quiet Sunday in early October

A Common Buzzard near Yakumo today................

A night in Yakumo #2

Harlequins

A quiet Sunday saw us east of Hakodate............

Still no winter

A Common Buzzard outside Hakodate yesterday............

A grey hungry Monday

A grey early winter day saw us pop out for a couple of hours.............

Amur Falcon

What I thought was a Hobby just outside town this afternoon..................

More signs of winter..............

A Black Legged Kittiwake shaking itself dry at Yakumo this afternoon. There were 8 species of gull at the mouth of the river and they included 50 or so Kittiwake...........................and unfortunately they all appeared to have black legs.

We were in Yakumo to check if any eagles had arrived. There were small numbers of salmon spawning and the Yurappu Valley was aflame with autumn colors (what a cliche that is but I don't know how else to describe it) and we found the grand total of ONE adult White Tailed Eagle (and that was too far away for a photo). The only raptor apart from the abundant Black Kite was this Common Buzzard.

We did see a Crested Kingfisher, I managed to get this record shot as it flew at great speed over my head...........................

This is one bird I hope to finally get a decent photograph of this winter.

There were some interesting birds at the mouth of the river too. Goshawk, the first Goldeneye of the winter and another species I hope to get a good photo of this winter. This was the best I could manage today. 2 Snow Bunting. It looked like they had literally just arrived (they came in off the sea). They flew over my head and landed on the beach, stayed 10 seconds and then disappeared to the opposite side of the river.

When I walked back to the car I disturbed another 2 buntings....................I snapped a record shot and when I reviewed the image back in the car I was surprised to find it was a male and female Pine Bunting.

Back at Onuma there weren't many birds in the forest but the lake was looking very autumnal..............

I watched The Hunger Games a couple of days ago. Very silly.
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Not one but TWO lifers......

A male Pine Bunting and a first winter (?) Rough Legged Buzzard, 2 new birds for both my Japan and life lists.

Actually I don't really keep a life list (too many vague sightings and hazy memories) but I recently counted up my Japan list which is now on 267 (and all but half a dozen of those have been in Hokkaido and most in the area where I live).

The day started off in Onuma which was very wintry.

There were some Whooper Swans dozing on the ice..........

I went to a small pond which is kept ice free in the winter (I think it must be near a hot spring or something). Usually there is a Great Egret there and sometimes a Kingfisher. Neither species was there but I was pleased to see this drake Smew...............

It flew off before I could get closer.

The weather then closed in, the Ural Owl was cosy in its hole.

We took the scenic route on the coast down to Esan. Lots of Brent goose and common seaducks and winter gulls as well as a White Tailed Eagle but no bird photos from here, it was too dark and cold. The area is famous for its frozen waterfalls in winter.........

This was below the hanging ice, it looks a little phallic.........

We ended up in Esan around lunchtime to look for the Buntings and Buzzards. I saw several common Buzzards and was ready to give up on the Rough Legged thinking I was jinxed. I looked for the Pine Buntings and found them immediately, 7 of them I think.

A few minutes later I saw my first Rough Legged Buzzard, there were 3 distant BIF sightings, I don't know if it was the same bird or several different individuals (6 were seen here last weekend). I fired off some record shots which I won't bother posting.

We headed back to Hakodate seeing lots more Common Buzzards...........as you can see they are pretty pale..............

................but not as pale as this Rough Legged Buzzard on the outskirts of Hakodate.

I've probably seen and overlooked this species before but today's birds were my first firm ID.

Shame it was against a grey sky late in the afternoon........

So a successful day, thanks once again to Osamu Kimura for finding the Buntings and Buzzards and kindly pointing out where to look for them. The Rough Legged Buzzard in these photos was my own find at least, there seems to be a bit of an influx at the moment.

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End of the holidays.......

So today was the end of the New Year break and I was up in Yakumo one last time. The usual suspects were present.........

The bridge was a freezing place today, a bitingly cold wind blowing in from Siberia. Not as many eagles about today, they seem to have dispersed as the salmon run out (this apparently being a bad year for the salmon run).

As you can see, the Stellers are a common sight to people living in Yakumo.

White Tailed Eagles appear to be slightly more numerous.........

This is a Common Buzzard, the ones over here in East Asia tend to look very pale.

Still some Great Egrets around.........

Though cold the weather wasn't too bad at Yakumo. We decided to head north to Oshamanbe to look for Long Tailed Duck and Pine Bunting but by the time we got there (only 20 minutes away) there was a raging blizzard and we couldn't even get out of the car (or see the road). We gave up and headed back to Yakumo and the sunshine. On the way we checked a place for Short Eared Owl, nothing doing there but there were several eagles including this Stellers perching just by the place we parked our car.

Other stuff around included the usual common ducks and gulls, Japanese Wagtail, Brown Dipper, Black Necked Grebe etc. We stopped at the Snow Bunting beach but after some serious floundering in snowdrifts I gave up. Let them have the beach..........it's theirs.

Back at Onuma the Ural Owl was still in its hole and a Black Woodpecker showed briefly. I was at Onuma yesterday too, here is a pic of the aforementioned Owl which I've seen the last 4 times I've been to Onuma I think........

At Kamiiso yesterday there were only 10 or so Black Necked Grebes left in the port.

Other stuff here included Merlin, White Tailed Eagle, 7 species of Gull and the usual common wildfowl.

So back to the grindstone tomorrow (not that I'm particularly busy until next week anyway), I think I'll get up and watch the Liverpool v Man City game, 3 points here would put us back into contention for a Champions League spot. Mind you we do have to beat the current leaders away from home, perhaps a draw would be good enough.

Here's a wintry view to finish with. The 100-400L does landscape........

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A lot below zero

An adult White Tailed Eagle at Yakumo this morning..........

Well last night was extremely cold and south Hokkaido was as wintry as I've seen it for a long long time. Deep deep snow and scarily icy roads were the order of the day as we drove up to Yakumo on the morning. The eagles were the same as last week although today's weather wasn't as good.

This young Stellers Sea Eagle was eating a salmon in a tree and after it finished it relieved itself in spectacular fashion.

Immature Stellers are much more attractive than the raggedy immature White Taileds..........toilet habits aside.

I got some more BIF shots but not as good as last week..............

Again, lots of birders around including 2 people linked on the right ('Dotetin' and Kim aka 'Sepak in Hakodate'). Because of my wife's job we only get to Yakumo at the weekends these days, in previous years we could go weekdays and pretty much have the eagles to ourselves. Not that I'm greedy or anything of course.

Not much else in the river valley, here's a male White Backed Woodpecker and a Common Buzzard being bugged by the local crows..........

We checked the river mouth and I was amazed to see the river was almost completely frozen, I've never seen this before...........

Not many birds about here of course. Offshore there were several species of duck, a few Great Crested and Red Necked Grebes and a lone Brent Goose. Lots of Glaucous and Glaucous Winged Gulls, here's one of the latter........

We got to Onuma just before sunset. A brief view of a Black Woodpecker was the highlight here. It was pretty dark by now, here a couple of high ISO shots with the lens wide open and the flash on.

I got back just in time to hear England capitulate in the cricket (what a weak end to the series that was). I watched 2 things last night. First up was 'The Road' and second up was Stoke v Liverpool. The former (a rather grim post-apocalyptic drama) was probably less depressing than the latter (Liverpool's second string throwing away 2 points in the last minute).

Still, before they began  I would have settled for 1-1 in both the cricket and last night's footy so maybe it isn't all that bad.

This upcoming week should be the week when the Waxwings come to town.............