More birds in the gloom

Some more birds from the forest pool near Tomakomai.............

A Late Spring Trip #3

A male Grey Bunting from earlier in the week....................

On this day (May 13th)..................

May 13th 2013.

A Grey Bunting in a local park 4 years ago today. This is a passage migrant locally but is generally skulking and confined to dark corners of quiet forests. It was great to see one out in the open and relatively tame too.

In mid May 2013 there was a truly great week or so when migrants were everywhere in town and this was the beginning. I don't know why but whatever the reason it hasn't happened again since.

A final visit to the pool.............

We went back to the forest pool the next day....................

Some common forest birds............

The forest pool is a good place for some of the commoner forest species, some of which are usually difficult to photograph....................

Grey Bunting

A male Grey Bunting at the forest pool from our recent trip.

This is another shy forest species that I rarely get the chance to photograph....................

Grey Bunting

A male Grey Bunting in Goryokaku Park this morning. It was skulking around and difficult to approach and it kept getting disturbed by the hordes of cherry blossom "viewers".

Still it was by far the best photos I've managed of this species................

It was another productive morning: lots of birds in the park again. Common Crossbill, Japanese White-eye, Eastern Crowned, Sakhalin Leaf and Japanese Bush Warblers, Narcissus Flycatcher (only a female) and lots and lots of Asian Brown Flycatchers..........they were everywhere.

As were Blue and White Flycatchers, I don't think I've seen as many in any spring before...........

The Black Winged Stilt was still there and seems to have no problem finding food in such a strange habitat.............

And here's a picture of it among the dandelions.............

I wonder how long it will stay?

Here's a not very good picture of a bird i've never posted before.

A Brown Thrush.............not rare at all but very shy and an inhabitant of dark forests in Hokkaido in summer. There were 4 of them but I couldn't get close enough and there were so many people around anyway.

At 9am it was like someone flipped a switch and the tour groups hit the park................literally hundreds and hundreds of loud Chinese speaking tourists in even louder jackets. I went home for breakfast...............


Thanks for clicking this link.......
人気ブログランキングへ

Things moving a little......

1 of 2 Great Egrets on the small river near my apartment today.

Quite a few different birds around town this last week....................Marsh, Varied and Great Tit, Rustic, Black Faced and Chestnut Eared Bunting, lots of Hawfinch, several Daurian Redstart, Red Flanked Bluetail, Brown Dipper, 3 types of heron, the first Tufted Duck of the season as well as Wigeon and Pintail.............

Still a few skulking Night Heron around.............

Last Sunday we went to the mountains to look for bears (somewhat halfheartedly it has to be said). Of course we didn't find any but we did see several different Crested Kingfishers. Very low numbers of salmon at Yakumo, hopefully this is due to the extremely hot end to summer and they will appear in numbers soon.

At Onuma the common resident wood land species were in evidence as well as the first Whooper Swans of the winter...............

Most interesting bird of the last couple of weeks was a female Mugimaki Flycatcher at Onuma. No photos (way too dark). I also found a small group of half a dozen or so Grey Bunting. This is a shy skulking bird that loves dark forested areas..................so almost impossible to photograph for the non serious types like me. Here is a very poor heavily cropped record shot.

Thanks for clicking this link.......
人気ブログランキングへ