A bit of spring in the air..........

A hint of spring at last...............

Birds on a wire

In late autumn the resident Carrion and Large Billed Crows are joined by 2 other species............Daurian Jackdaw and (Eastern) Rook. These are winter vistors from the Asian mainland and are much shyer than the resident species.

There seem to be lot of the Jackdaws this year. About a dozen or so mixed in with the Rooks. The above crappy photo shows a grey phase adult with a Rook underneath.

They perch on high wires against grey skies and fly off as soon as you look at them, not ideal photo subjects. I guess I could be more patient but after growing up in the UK it's a little hard to get excited by rooks and jackdaws.............................

More of the same.

The usual early 2014 suspects. Stellers Sea Eagle, Ural Owl and Gyrfalcon.

2012 begins........

A quiet lazy start to 2012 saw us in Kamiiso first up. I couldn't find the Shorelark, maybe it's gone. There were a few birds in the port though, not as many Black Necked Grebes as last time.

This Black Scoter caught something tasty looking..........

Not much else around so we headed to Onuma, the Ural Owl was showing nicely if a little sleepily.

The Nuthatches now have a snowy background instead of an autumnal one........

Not a vintage New Years Day for photos. It was a dark grey day as you can see. On the way back home in the late afternoon we stopped to check out a large flock of Rooks in Ono. Growing up in England it's difficult to get excited about Rooks but over here they are a little rare. I've never really tried to photograph crows before, I had no idea it was so hard. Black birds on a dark day are not a great idea and this species os unbelievably shy here too. This was the best I could manage and it isn't very good. Soft and blurry but at least it was striking a nice pose.

In the flock there were 3 Daurian Jackdaw, another bird I find difficult to photograph. I never see them on the ground, always against grey skies and I only ever shoot them through the car window on busy roads on freezing cold days.

This is the fifth anniversary of this blog, I started on January 1st 2007. I also went to Onuma that day...........

Before that I had another blog on surfirds which ran all the way through 2006.

5 years, the time has flashed by........

Thanks for clicking this link

More wintry stuff

A bit of a short entry today, I'm a bit tired and there's loads of footy on the TV.

A quick look at Yakumo this afternoon. I was expecting another eaglefest but there didn't seem to be so many as last week, where did they all go?

A lot did seem to be hiding in the snowladen trees..........like these adult Stellers Sea Eagles.

It was snowing yet again with very grey skies but I did manage a few BIFs, like this young White Tailed Eagle.

To complete the eagle set (well 3 out of 4, no Golden Eagles which are very rare in Hokkaido) here's a distant Mountain Hawk Eagle...................

The usual winter stuff was present including Rook and Daurian Jackdaw, here's one of the latter........both these usually rather scarce species of crow seem to be not so scarce this winter........

And this was a Great Egret at Onuma earlier in the day...........

Not a lot of colour today then...............hopefully I'll find some more Waxwings in Hakodate this week.

Thanks for clicking this link...........

OMG some blue sky............

A Black Necked Grebe at Shikabe this afternoon.

Very nice weather today, lots of blue sky and tolerably mild weather. We started off in Hakodate, I tried to do a Brent Goose video but they didn't come close enough so we headed over to Kamiso. Lots of stuff on the sea here, mainly Goosander and Red Breasted Merganser but also some Grebes and Divers way offshore. Next stop was Onuma.

The usual stuff was around here, the most interesting bird was this Daurian Jackdaw, one of a group of 4 circling high in the sky.

This is a fairly scarce visitor to the region in winter although it seems to be getting commoner.......

I'd forgotten what a clear blue sky looked like.

Over at Shikabe there were a few Black Necked Grebe (nowhere near as many as last year though).

And here is a fairly common bird that I rarely get to photograph.

A drake Black Scoter. Lots of these visit the region in winter but generally they're out on the open sea. This wasn't so close but a lot closer than I normally get.

We headed back to Onuma, not much happening birdwise but it was nice and wintry......

My wife takes much nicer landscape stuff than I do, here she is in action.

February has kind of slipped by without me really noticing it. The Crossbills didn't arrive as they had done the previous 2 Februarys. Looks like next week will see me loitering under pine trees looking for red and green birds. They were here every late winter from 2002-2004 and then went missing for 3 years, returning again in 2008.

So basically I have no idea if they'll come or not.

Bad luck comes in threes...........it's true.

Yesterday was very clear sunny weather bang in the middle of the peak of the wader migration season. I had most of the day free and was planning to go to the beach at Kamiso.

But I couldn't go due to an attack of gout, something of a family curse (not helped by my love of beer and seafood). All I can do is hobble around my apartment with a very painful red swollen big toe cursing life in general and the construction noise specifically. I also have had a chronic sore throat the last 3 or 4 weeks and half of one of my teeth fell out last week. F**king hell! If it really comes in threes I've used up all my bad luck for a long while....

I was bored so here are some photos from earlier in the year that never made it onto this blog. They were on my 2 abortive attempts at a second blog, both of which bit the dust.............

This Spectacled Guilemot was in one of the fishing harbours in town in January. It just about managed to swallow that big fish.......







And here is its relative, an Ancient Murrelet also in January out at Menagawa..........



The influx of Crossbills in March/April provided lots of photo opps very close to my apartment........









And here are some Eagle in flight shots at Yakumo last winter where I messed up the exposure..............







And on the ground.............







I don't know why I didn't put this Crane shot on this blog, it's one of my fave ones.....



The Black Necked Grebes in Shikabe were very photogenic in early April.......in both winter and summer plumages..........





I rarely get to take shots of this species: a White Backed Woodpecker in Yakumo in January...........



And here is a Daurian Jackdaw, a scarce winter visitor. This was last winter just outside town.......



Hope there are still some waders around when I can walk properly again in a few days time..............