On this day (December 21st)...............

December 21st 2011.

An Iceland Gull in Preston 7 years ago today.

This was a lifer at the time (although it seems to have been lumped with Kumelins and Thayers Gull seubsequently and I've seen the latter in Japan).

Note it's on ice: the usually mild NW of England was in the middle of a very nasty cold spell at the time. This was at Preston Marina, a pace which normally doesn't freeze over in winter at all AFAIK.

Wintry

A bit of an influx of Waxwings into the region, they're everywhere. I've seen at least 5 separate flocks but none were approachable. Almost all seem to be Japanese Waxwings. I did manage to fire off a few shots today but it was snowing very heavily and the light was just awful.

I couldn't focus at all due to the darkness and the blizzard like conditions so I used my 'BIF' custom settings which resulted in fast shutter speeds but massively underexposed images. I brightened them up (a lot) on the computer and although blurry and grainy I quite like the results...........

The one with the yellow tip to its tail is a Bohemian Waxwing. Usually this is the commoner one but not this winter..........

A lot of snow these last few days and it brought with it a few winter birds...........and a crappy birdscape photo opp.

Part of a very skittish flock of Brambling. Other small birds in town this week have been Hawfinch, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Bullfinch, Brown Dipper as well as the usual winter stuff like Daurian Redstart and Dusky Thrush as well as resident species like Coal, Great and Varied Tit. Teal and Tufted Duck share the mostly frozen river with a couple of Grey Heron and a Peregrine was a nice flyover bird yesterday. Surprise of the week was a pair of Oriental Turtle Dove: usually they're well gone before the snow comes............

I had a very quick look at Kamiso a couple of days ago. Scaup, Goosander, Wigeon, Goldeneye and Whooper Swan were present. At Onuma there wasn't much at all except the Tits and Nuthatches.

This is the Hokkaido race of the common Eurasian Nuthatch, the same species I was seeing back in Penwortham just last week. The ones in Penwortham are a bit more colourful though.

And UK Great Tits are more colourful than the ones out here too..........

I think there were several Marsh and Willow Tits. Both species occur in Hokkaido but I always assumed Marsh were much commoner.  Most of them at Onuma seem to be Marsh Tits but to be honest I don't look too closely at all of them. Unlike Europe call is not a reliable way to ID these 2 species in east Asia. I have noticed some bullying others, I read somewhere that Marsh Tits are dominant over Willow Tits. These 2 don't seem to have such glossy caps............

Sunshine has been a rarity recently but for a few minutes the other day the skies cleared and illuminated the mountain at Onuma..............

All the dark gloomy light recently reminds me of the UK. Here are some shots from last week in Preston of the wintering Iceland Gull. It was very active but it was late in the day and very dark indeed.

A very nice bird to see, don't think I'll ever see one here although we do sometimes get the closely related Thayers Gull.

I got some very dark BIF shots on my last evening in Preston............

I can't work out how to position these small thumbnail photos...............they're not aligned, I know I know.

Hopefully the snow will relent and I can find some more Waxwings tomorrow........

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

A Christmas Nightmare

An Iceland Gull in Preston this afternoon, this well known individual has been around a while now. Notice it is on ice, Preston is as cold as I can remember it being in my lifetime and even by Hokkaido standards it's pretty damn cold.

My journey to Preston from Japan was an unmitigated disaster. I got to Amsterdam OK but on arriving to an icebound airport it became clear something was wrong when we had to wait on the runway about 2 hours as all the landing docks were occupied by frozen planes. I disembarked in time to see my connection had been cancelled and learned I would have to spend the night on the airport. I had no change of clothes and no cash. Thousands of people were milling around, no airline staff were on view anywhere. I joined the queue for the transfer desk with the thousands of others and spent the night slumped over a baggage trolley.

The next morning nothing was happening and after various rumours and wild goose chases I ended up at a gate that had a plane going to Manchester, me and hundreds of others. KLM gave priority for those with tickets for that flight and it was basically bad luck to all of the rest of us who had been waiting up to 24 hours. Things got pretty ugly at that point and the airline staff had to call security, eventually common sense prevailed and we got on the next flight. I had spent 48 hours with no sleep and no change of clothes when I finally got to Manchester to find my luggage was not there. I filled out a form and left the airport, in the chaotic scenes I didn't get a receipt and had to call later for a reference number to track my bag. KLM, the f**kwits, rather than sending my bags on the next flight to Manchester decided to send it via Paris and Bristol and 4 days later it still hasn't arrived. So I have hardly any clothes to wear and no christmas presents to give anyone. Oh and I just caught a cold too.

2010 just gets worse and worse.

At least the Iceland Gull was still around.