Autumn Terns

On Monday we headed north................

2018 late Summer trip #3

 The second day of our short trip was windy but sunny...................

On this day (June 5th).......................

June 5th 2015.

A Common Tern in the Marina in Preston 3 years ago today. I wish we had a tern colony up close in Hakodate. Terns of any species are rare around here and in fact no tern species breed in Hokkaido at all.

One good tern.................

Another typhoon hit Japan this weekend.................

On this day (September 29th)..................

September 29th 2013.

Not a great picture by any stretch but I was quite excited by this scene 3 years ago today. A Long-tailed Skua mugging a Common Tern offshore at Yakumo. This is usually something that happens way offshore and I never witness, the Skua was a lifer too.

A couple of weeks later I saw large numbers of Pomarine Skua migrating close inshore at the same place. The last 2 years I checked at the same place/time but got nothing at all................

2015 Best Of #3

Some more of my fave shots from the last year...............

England 2015 #5

My last batch of photos from England..................

England 2015 #3

Up close with Arctic Terns on the Farnes..............

England 2015 #1

There is now a colony of Common Terns on the marina in Preston..............

Phoned in Common Tern

Common Tern in Preston. Another dodgy photo processed on my tablet.

Only the second one in 2013.............

A Red Fox at mosquito infested Onuma this afternoon.

Most of the day was spent at Yakumo where I got only my second lifer of the year.

A heavy crop (it was well offshore) of a Long Tailed Skua. A juvenile I think. Thanks to Sean and the others at birdforum for confirming the ID.

It was harrassing a group of Common Terns offshore. Again, these are all heavy crops.

On looking at some of the shots on my PC screen I could just about see the terns dropping their fish and the skua catching it in midair.

Those shots were too blurry to post though.

It was pursuing them in a most single minded way....................

The terns didn't come much closer even when they weren't being mugged.

Oh if only my 500 f4 had arrived (still 2 more weeks to wait).

There were 5 species of gull. The first Vega of the 'winter' as well as a lone adult Black Legged Kittiwake.

I'd seen a Black Necked Grebe there last week, today there were 3 of them.

Not much else around. 2 Great Egret, a Greenshank calling on the other side of the river, a couple of Ospreys fishing offshore and a few common migrants flitting around.

On the river near my house the last week there were Siberian Stonechat, Asian Brown Flycatcher, Night Heron and Grey Wagtail. Last weekend was very quiet, on the 20th I went up to Yakumo and Oshamanbe and got Greenshank, Red Necked Stint, Dunlin, Sanderling and Eastern Marsh Harrier.

So a quiet September this year, not helped by the weather and my own lethargy (although by my own low standards I have been pretty busy with work). The wader passage was very disappointing (but perhaps I just missed them). I was pretty excited by the skua today though, maybe we're in for a good autumn this year.

I watched the Premier League games last night and laughed out loud at the 2 Manc teams losing. I haven't watched that much footy so far this season. To be honest I'm a little tired of football, if England flop out of the World Cup at the qualification stage it may permanently knock out whatever enthusiasm currently remains.

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Grey Skies and grey seas

3 species from the latest Tomakomai pelagic trip. Sooty Shearwater, Streaked Shearwater and Common Tern (the east Asian subspecies).

As you can see it was very dark, a really grey wet day which wasn't so good for photographs. I struggle getting the birds in focus on a moving boat anyway and the terrible light made it even worse.

This Sooty Shearwater was nice to see up close and provided the day's nicest photos.

Streaked Shearwaters were very common.........

And there were also several flocks of Common Tern.

The terns were being harried by several Arctic Skua but they were too fast for me to capture any shots. Bird of the day was an Aleutian Tern which appeared momentarily in the gloom. Other folk saw some Japanese Murrelet but I missed them. There were also Red Necked Pharalope, a distant Laysan Albatross and a few migrating passerines on their way south (warblers and flycatchers mainly).

Back onshore Tomakomai's Magpies were everywhere (even seen from our hotel window). A Little Stint (rare over here) was reported from the harbour where the boat had departed from but we couldn't locate it, only Red Necked Stints (hell they look identical anyway). We spent a pleasant afternoon at Mukawa with some of the birders from Hokkaido University. Wood Sandpiper, Long Toed Stint, Spotted Redshank and Common Snipe were around (the latter being new to my Japanese list).

On Saturday morning I'd tried the ricefields in Ono looking for waders but the rain defeated me. I did disturb a couple of Snipe which may well have Common Snipe but it was nice for better birders than me to confirm the ID.

On the way back home we stopped briefly at Yakumo. the first Wigeon of the autumn, a lone drake, was calling from the middle of the river and I disturbed a Japanese Green Pigeon on the beach but there wasn't much else except for a lot of crows.......

I think that's a Giant Sea Turtle? At first I thought it was a cow(!), the pecked out eyes I'd mistaken for nostrils.........

Anyway, yuk.

I hooked up the wife's laptop to the internet at the hotel and watched the Tottenham v Liverpool game. I went to bed after the second red card/3rd Spurs goal. Oh dear.

September 2011...............wow what awful awful weather.........

By the way Blogger seems to be having some problems with the images, if you click on the images they may appear in a 'light box' style, this is beyond my control. On older posts it may be impossible to click on the photos to enlarge them. Hopefully this bug will be sorted out soon.

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