A quiet week in late autumn

It's been a quiet week in town. In the local park there were 3 Wigeon (above), 4 Pochard, 1 Pintail and 1 Mallard with the resident Spot-billed Ducks as well as a couple of Little Grebe. On the river were 1 Great Egret, 1 Grey Heron, a small flock of Rustic Bunting and lone Daurian Redstart (male) and Red-flanked Bluetail.

Not much on the edge of town either. Last Monday at Kamiiso there was a big flock of Wigeon and 5 species of gull including Glaucous-winged. The ricefields were quiet too although there were a few Rooks in the crow flocks feeding in the stubble...............

A sunny springlike Monday

Monday was a sunny spring day.............

Finding solstice in the fishing ports

The shortest day of the year was mild and rainy in Hakodate.............

Sunshine comes back as work returns...............

After having my 2 days off ruined by horrible weather the sunshine came back as I returned to work...............

Luckily I could sneak a couple of hours in at Kamiiso and the American Wigeon was still there..............

New camera and (almost) new bird

My 7D Mark 2 arrived on Saturday. Naturally the weather has been unrelentingly awful ever since....................

Varied Tits

Some Varied Tits at Onuma this morning before the weather closed in. This individual was very tame, the shot below was taken with my wife's 100mm macro lens......

As you can see it's still very autumnal, it snowed a little last week but it didn't settle.

All the common species were around.

Other species of note included Whooper Swan, Great Egret, Coot, Little Grebe, Goosander, Treecreeper, Long Tailed Tit, the commoner tits and woodpeckers and 2 immature White Tailed Eagles in the sky above Onuma village.

A very slow week has just come to an end, the common water birds remained on the moat in Goryokaku Park, a flock of 8-10 Hawfinch were also in the park, a Brown Dipper was on the river but the main thing that happened was more tree cutting, the City Hall has cut down at least 50% of the trees alongside the river, I have no idea why but I suspect it's just to use up this year's budget funds by creating artificial 'employment'.

It looks terrible (of course they didn't remove any of the garbage that blights Hakodate waterways) and I hope they at least leave some trees standing so the migrants next spring have some places to feed in.

At Kamiiso this afternoon there were more egrets and several Wigeon in the rain.........

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Winter just round the corner

One of the tame Nuthatches at Onuma, when they come close looking for food you know winter is coming soon...........

We started off the day in Yakumo. The eagles have arrived since we last visited 2 weeks ago. There were about 25 or so, about 60-70% of them seemed to be White Tailed Eagles with the rest being Stellers Sea Eagles, hopefully lots more will arrive presently.

I rarely get good shots of them until the winter really kicks in. These were the best I could manage today..........

Also upstream were Goldeneye, Great Egret, Brown Dipper, Japanese Wagtail, Goosander, Buzzard and lots ands lots of Jay, these were everywhere today.......

At the river mouth were 7 species of Gull, Goshawk, lots of wildfowl including 30 or so Whooper Swan and a flock of Dunlin. I tried to get some duck BIF shots, here's a pair of Wigeon.....

We stopped at Onuma to feed the Nuthatches. 4 species of Woodpecker were around including Grey Headed and Black. In the forest there were flocks of Brambling and Dusky Thrush on the move. Other stuff here included Whooper Swan and huge flocks of Mallard...............the first snow is forecast in a couple of days, winter will come soon I think..........

I got a new 32 inch TV and an ipod touch a couple of days ago. The TV was only slightly more expensive (about ¥7000 difference). WTF?!?!

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#200 sneaks up quietly

A couple of nice sunny days in Hakodate this week. Yesterday I headed back to Nanaehama to see if the 2 Lapland Buntings were present and indeed they were as you can see from the photos above.

I tried crouching down on the beach, a mistake as it led to pain radiating down my sciatic nerve, my back is still knackered I'm sad to say. I can still only walk at half speed but this isn't such a problem in the snow and ice as everyone walks slowly.............

I noticed flocks of Black Scoter offshore giving their eerie cries, I didn't have any binoculars with me so I checked them through my camera. One or 2 of them looked a bit odd so I took some shots and lo and behold when I came back and checked on the computer there were 2 female White Winged Scoters amongst them.................a local tick and #200 on my Hakodate list.

I walked down to Kamiiso (very slowly), on the way were some Wigeon and Brent Geese........

In the harbour at Kamiiso were a few common species including Scaup, Goldeneye, Pelagic and Temincks Cormorant as well as several Goosander..........

Offshore were big rafts of Red Breasted Merganser and a few Great Crested Grebes too. Other noteworthy species included Glaucous and Glaucous Winged Gull, Great Egret and Whooper Swan.

On the way back from the train window I noticed a Grey Goose dozing in the river, from its size it was probably a White Fronted Goose (which I sometimes see in town) but if I go back next week and it turns out to be a Bean Goose that'll be #201....................

Not much near my flat recently, a Black Faced Bunting and Oriental Turtle Dove (2 species I normally don't see in winter) were around today as were Wren, Coal Tit and Hawfinch plus the usual common winter stuff.

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A year with my lens

A Varied Tit at Onuma last Sunday.

Well it's been a year since I got my 100-400 lens. And if you hark back to this same date last year you'd see I'm taking pretty much identical pictures, the same birds in the same trees even.

There was some nice light at Onuma for an hour or so and the usual species were as tame and photogenic as ever.







The Varied Tits even stayed relatively still allowing me to snap a series of poses.











A Great Tit and a female Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker were also about.







Not much chance for any scenery pictures as the weather soon closed in.......



Pretty quiet around Hakodate, here's a Wigeon and a Hawfinch from the last few days............the Hawfinch flew off before I realised my camera settings were all wrong.





So November 25th was when Franck lent me the 100-400 lens (which I eventually bought the following spring). I've taken approx 20,000 shots in the last 12 months and I'd say 90% were with this lens. I'm now realising the limitations of my 400D but money being the way it is it'll do me another winter for sure.

What else has happened during the last 12 months? Pound sterling has dropped by about 30 or 40% against the ¥. I went back to England for a visit in spring before this happened of course. This time last year I was bemoaning England's failure to qualify for Euro 2008, at least they seem to be sorting themselves out now. Liverpool? Still not the finished article and too many mediocre foreigners. But again better than this time last year. I got a new imac. We got a new fridge and my wife got a new camera. The car started making funny noises and the window on the passenger seat side doesn't open anymore.

My blurb book was too dark so I re-edited the pics and uploaded the revision. In the intervening 3 weeks (since I ordered the original) they changed the postal rates so now it costs $19 instead of $7 to mail it to Japan! I sent an angry e-mail and got the usual automated response which of course just made me angrier. 'It's beyond our control, thanks for your understanding, please contact me if you have any further questions' type crap. Still it's cheap if you live in Europe or North America.

The next 12 months? Why I'll get and rich and famous after I sell lots and lots of books. Perhaps we can actually get the car fixed. Hey you gotta dream.

Winter begins..................

Heavy snow and subzero temperatures hit Hakodate yesterday, a little earlier than normal.

Just before the snow hit I walked down to the area around Hakodate docks to check if the Brent Geese had arrived (they hadn't). Not much around in the harbour area except these Harlequin Ducks......





The day before I'd been in Goryokakau Park, the Coot was still there as well as several Long Tailed Rosefinch which all flew off every time I got near.





The temperature was a bit higher today so I went back to Goryokaku park. 3 Wigeon were poking around on the moat.



The rest of the time I was trudging through the slush and playing hide and seek with some Buntings. 2 species including this superb male Yellow Throated.





Keeping it company were 2 Rustic Buntings.





So my book arrived. The colours were OK (I calibrated my screen) and the pics are sharp enough but about 50% of the photos are too dark. I guess this means my screen is too bright. Luckily I'd saved all the edited photos so could easily brighten them slightly. Now I have to decide if any of my pics from the last 3 weeks (since I ordered my sample copy) are worth putting in the revised edition. Once I'm happy with the revised edition I'll put it on sale. I've sold 13 of my calendars so far, thanks if you've bought one. The website is only in English I'm afraid, I guess that means no-one in Japan will buy it then.

Looking forward to the finale of the Shield next week. Can't wait in fact. I hardly ever watch TV shows these days but this one has had me hooked these last few years.