Some nasty weather

A close-up of a Blue Rock Thrush this afternoon.............

Monochrome weekend

It was a grey and rather overcast weekend..............

A quiet coastal drive...............

A first year Peregrine just to the east of town on Monday afternoon.....................

Common birds of March

Yesterday I quickly checked Kamiiso to see if the Black Necked Grebes had come into summer plumage.....................

February begins

A low key start to February in Onuma...................

Spring 2011 continues..........

A male Crossbill this afternoon in a small patch of pine trees next to one of the harbours at Oshanambe. It was a productive stop, I got this shot of an Osprey there too.

My father-in-law informed me the fish is an 'akahara' (redbelly) which is apparently almost inedible to humans, I hope baby Ospreys are less fussy.

Another nice spring day saw us start off in Onuma. The Black Woodpeckers were active but difficult to get close to, it looks like they may be nesting in the middle of a swampy patch which should ensure privacy from prying lenses. This crappy record shot of the female was the best was the best I could manage.

There were still plenty of Whooper Swans plus all the usual residents, the Nuthatches are starting to look a bit scruffy............

Other stuff at Onuma included Siskin, Mandarin Duck, Goosander, Great Egret, Japanese Grosbeak etc.......

Lots of common ducks everywhere including large flocks of Pintail and Wigeon at Yakumo and Oshamanbe, Shoveler, Harlequin Duck and Black Scoter, lots of summer plumage Great Crested Grebes.

Today was definitely a BIF day. This Osprey was at Yakumo.

There seemed to be lots of raptors on the move, this was one of several Sparrowhawks.......

The 7D is a great BIF camera.........

The Crossbills were a nice find, they were sharing the trees with a flock of Siskin. They were very flighty although this male stuck around long enough for a few shots...........

We had a quick look at some of the wetlands but these don't really get interesting until mid to late May. The only birds here were lots of Skylark and a few Reed Bunting.

On Friday I went back to Goryokaku Park to see if the Crossbills were still there. They were but not close enough for a picture. The Brambling, Hawfinch and Siskin flocks were also around as were the 3 Pochard. A Peregrine was a good flyover bird. The only photos I took though were of this rather tame male Grey Headed Woodpecker.

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Whitefronts

A pair of White Fronted Geese at Kamiiso this afternoon. Not a vintage week for photos so far.........

Not much around in town the last week, it turned pretty icy and nothing to report from near my apartment except a couple of Red Breasted Merganser and a male Goosander on the river yesterday.

I checked out the port in Kamiiso, not much here either. Lots of Great Crested Grebe offshore, the usual common seaducks including flocks of Black Scoter and the Kentish Plover was still around too.

I headed slightly inland and the Geese were in among the Whooper Swan and ducks.

There were also Pochard, and these Goldeneye and Goosander here.......

Small birds included Japanese Wagtail, Siskin and Long Tailed Rosefinch. These 2 White Tailed Eagle were in an inaccessible place of the river, I didn't want to wade through snowdrifts to get any closer so this record shot will have to do.......

There were lots of dead salmon in the river, probably a little too deep for the eagles to get easily(and too deep for the abundant crows/kites too). Actually this spot is very good for Kite BIF shots as they fly around very close but against stone grey skies like today it's difficult to get any keepers............

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Some common winter birds

Another quiet week in Hakodate, where are all the birds this winter? No Crossbills or Waxwings, no winter finches..............luckily I found this very co-operative Daurian Redstart. Several individuals set up winter territories on the river near my flat and this one is on a stretch with a concrete pathway and doesn't seem so bothered by passersby..............

Not much else in town. I went to Yunokawa on Friday, not much there either. A lot of habitat has been destroyed near the river. Some remains however but as seems to be the case with most places in south Hokkaido this winter it was pretty birdless. 3 Long Tailed Rosefinch and a flock of 20 or so Hawfinch and that was about it.

6 species of duck were on the river including Goldeneye.

And this Little Grebe too, not a bird I often get to photograph..........

Crossbills and Waxwings are unreliable, like many things in life. But that might mean they surprise me soon.......

Hope Liverpool can do Man City tomorrow. Just watched Everton beat Man U so you never know....................

Lots of good stuff to end the month........

Two of today's star birds, a drake Long Tailed Duck at Oshamanbe and a Mountain Hawk Eagle tucking into some salmon at Yakumo.

The latter is a scarce bird in Hokkaido and is only the second one I've ever seen. It has very thick powerful talons and it looks like it doesn't take s**t from anyone. The local Crows left it well alone (something they don't need to do with the bigger Stellers and White Tailed Eagles). The above photo was taken with a 1.4 teleconverter as was this video.........

This video was cropped and downsized, for the full HD version go here.

I still haven't quite got the hang of liveview, this video with DSLR lark is tricky to master as is editing it on the PC.

To be honest the jury is still out on the 7D/100-400L combo when used with a teleconverter and I took it off, these shots below are without.

It was by the side of the road and attracted several folk with large expensive lenses. We spent part of the afternoon with 'dotetin' (blog linked on the right) and although the Hawk Eagle was the top bird on show today the usual stuff was still around. Not many BIFs today...........here is an adult Stellers Sea Eagle in a tree instead.

As you can see we finally had some decent weather, after a whole month with only a couple of half days with blue skies.

I got several blurry out of focus shots of Crested Kingfisher, other stuff upstream included White Tailed Eagle, Jay, Brown Dipper, Japanese Wagtail, Goldeneye, Whooper Swan and Goosander.

Lots of Rooks around today. Near Onuma, just outside Yakumo and this one in a supermarket car park in Hakodate.

Rooks are a scarce winter visitor in northern Japan.

After Yakumo we headed up to Oshamanbe and the Long Tailed Ducks (well 3 of them) were in the harbour.

Other ducks in the harbour included several Wigeon. One of the drakes had a green crescent on its head, was this a hybrid with an American Wigeon? I didn't get a decent shot of it, it looked just like a regular Wigeon otherwise............

Lots of Goldeneye and Scaup..........

Lots of Glaucous and Glaucous Winged Gulls around, here's an adult Glaucous Gull.

The weather took a turn for the worse and sleet turned to snow on the drive home. The forecast for next week is very bad, well below zero all week and more snow so we got really lucky this morning........

I got drunk and fell asleep on the sofa watching Liverpool v Bolton last night. i'll stay up late tonight to watch the Man U v Arsenal game. A tough one to decide who I want to win, I dislike them both.............but I'd rather a northern team with a few English players won tonight's game. Having said that I'll despair if Man U win the league again (god that means I hope Chelsea do it).