Obon

A hot humid weekend.............................

More from a grey Sunday..........

Just common stuff at this time of year..............

Saturday afternoon in Onuma

A Goldcrest in Onuma this afternoon......................

Cormorant ID issues

A cormorant at Kamiiso yesterday but which species?

There are 2 very similar species in Japan: Great Cormorant (the same one as in Europe and North America) and temincks Cormorant (restricted to NE Asia). Temincks is the 'default' marine species in Japan and is widespread whereas Great is more local and tends to occur on inland waters (although not exclusively).

I saw 3 Cormorants flying over my flat heading north last week, were they Great Cormorants going to Onuma (where they breed)? I couldn't get a photo and they were too high up to get a decent view anyway.

There are 2 main ways to distinguish them (habitat is not enough...............I have seen Temincks inland):

1. Temincks plumage has a green sheen and Great has a brown sheen. The bird above appears to have the brown sheen but light can play tricks with this method.

2. The facial pattern of the yellow skin. To the left of the mouth Great has a rounded edge and Temincks has a ponted triangular edge.

This is yesterday's bird.

Hmmmm..........not  100% sure about this one. It appears to be somewhat rounder than these 2 Temincks Cormorants shots taken in previous late winters.

So is it a Great Cormorant or not? The first 3 shots I mean........................

Any opinions will be gratefully received. Great Cormorant would be a Hakodate first for me.

Not much else around, the usual grebes, gulls and ducks in small numbers but nothing close enough for a decent photo. Buff Bellied Pipit and Kentish Plover were on the beach but very skittish. 4 Great Egret flew over my apartment yesterday morning but town seems pretty birdless at the moment..............


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Spring slowly unrolling

An Osprey at Onuma this afternoon. A heavy crop and a not very good photo but my first Osprey shot of 2012..................

In Onuma the snow and ice had melted quite a lot since last week and the birds weren't as concentrated as a few days ago, they were spread out over the rapidly expanding unfrozen portions of the lake. Large flocks of Pintail and Wigeon were the most noticeable and in the forest were Brambling and thrushes (mostly Dusky and Pale Thrush).

I tried to get better shots of the Great Cormorants, the light was better today but they are a difficult subject, all I could get were flybys and none of them very good.

The tame tits and nuthatches posed nicely in the spring light.

Lots of woodpeckers drumming everywhere: here's a Japanese Pygmy.

Summer visitors have been arriving all week. Barn Swallow, Asian House Martin and Siberian Stonechat in several locales as well as returnees from the south such as Japanese Bush Warbler. Sadly the trees and bushes along the river near my apartment were decimated by Hakodate City at the end of last year so I guess any migrants will just pass over my part of the city now: all that remains are tree stumps and piles of garbage.

Not a great week for photos but at least there were some interesting birds around. In Kamiiso the Gadwall and Falcated Teals from last weekend remained for a few days but defied my attempts of get any decent photos, this was the best of a bad bunch from a few days ago.

We finished off in Kamiiso this afternoon. Most of the ducks have gone now, 7 species of gull were present though as well as this Osprey, another heavy crop.

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17

A Great Cormorant at Onuma today with nesting materials. All the waterbirds were concentrated on one ice free patch of the lake and there were a lot of birds it has to be said.

Not a great picture but this species is quite rare in north Japan and usually occurs only on freshwater. There is a colony at Onuma, it differs from the very similar and much commoner Temincks Cormorant in having a brown sheen to its plumage (the latter has a greenish sheen).

All I could get were BIFs today and not very good ones either.

There were also huge flocks of Pintail and various other ducks around as well as lots of Grey Heron and several Great Egret. The latter were coming into summer plumage.

The Grey Herons were catching large fish in an ice free pond.

The tame Nuthatches were around as were all the common resident species.

I saw 17 species of duck today. The most intersting were Smew and Mandarin at Onuma and pairs of Falcated Duck and Gadwall at Kamiiso. No good shots at all, only a hastily grabbed BIF of a female Mandarin survived the cull.

Other stuff around today included Whooper Swan, Brent Goose, Osprey, Sparrowhawk, Little Grebe, Coot, Grear Crested Grebe and Red Necked Grebe. Here is one of the latter at Sawara, unfortunately it was caught up in some fishing line and was looking in very poor shape.

For some reason the ports at Shikabe and Sawra had very low water levels and were almost birdless, I have no idea why the water levels were so low (I never really notice much in the way of tides here).

So it looks like spring is just round the corner then...........

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Black and White

A female Black Woodpecker (at Onuma) and an adult Glaucous Gull (at Yakumo). It was a very cold snowy grey kind of day today, winter has returned if only briefly.

Not much at Yakumo, a small flock of Great Egret, a lone Slavonian Grebe, the usual common ducks plus lots of Glaucous Gull. This is one of my fave winter birds, not so many in Hakodate as a rule but there always seem to be plenty in Yakumo. They were at the rivermouth and impossible to approach closely. 

The Black Woodpecker was a nice find at Onuma, the first one i've seen for a while actually. It was very dark though and it flew off after a minute or so. I could only get heavily cropped noisy record shots.

Though I've seen them many times I've only ever gotten decent photos once and that was over 3 years ago. There were lots of Woodpeckers of various species drumming everywhere in Onuma and that combined with the honking of the Whooper Swans made for a nice peaceful atmosphere.

The Black Woodpecker was in the same general area as the common Tits and Nuthatches. These certainly aren't shy.

The birds were scattered by a female Sparrowhawk but all returned 10 minutes later. There was also a Japanese Grosbeak and Hawfinch too but they were even shyer than the Black Woodpecker. The Mandarins were as uncooperative as ever and only allowed record shots, how can something as colourful as this be so shy?

Not a great Sunday for photos as you can see. Continuing the crappy cropped record shot theme of the day........

Great Cormorants (the same as in the UK). They have a bronze sheen in breeding plumage unlike the much commoner green sheen of the Japanese Cormorant (which is usually found on the coast and generally not at freshwater sites). These are I think pretty rare in Hokkaido but Onuma has a small colony of them every summer.........shame they sit out in the middle of the lake all the time.

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