A mild Monday

Monday saw record breaking temperatures further south in Japan (the hottest day ever in Japan, the hottest day ever in Tokyo) but  surprisingly it wasn't so hot near Hakodate...............

2017 Best of #8

Some more photos from earlier in the year................

Before the storm

A big typhoon is due to hit tonight................

Another hot humid Sunday

The weather is still hot and humid.........................

Summer Pigeons

It's been a quiet hot hot couple of weeks.....................

2014 Best of #4

 


 


 

 


Some more of my fave pics from 2014, these were from the summer................

Roadblock

A day of errors.............

A Japanese Green Pigeon just outside Hakodate late this afternoon...............

A lazy Sunday afternoon

After 5 days at the grindstone looking at the sunny weather outside I finally had a day off and the weather was crap again. Grey, misty, drizzly.

The above Japanese Green Pigeon was at its usual place near Shikabe, the flock was very skittish though and after an hour I gave up.

A bit bored at the moment.................summer is my least favourite season (even when England aren't being crap at major football tournaments) and we're now entering 6 or 7 weeks of mostly downtime. I was so bored I watched 'Pompeii' last night..............what a silly little movie that was. Actually judging by its shape and the large rocks scattered everywhere the volcano at Onuma must have had a huge eruption in historical times, wonder if there are any ash entombed Green Pigeons anywhere?

The slowest week of the slowest month

The worst month for birding in south Hokkaido is generally July. Actually the start of the month is often OK but by the end there really isn't much going on plus in the last week of July it starts to get pretty hot and humid. Ospreys and Green Pigeons, as I've said before, are the only birding staples at this time of year so today we headed over to Shikabe to see the latter.

The skies were leaden and the dirty pebble beach was covered in rotting stinking seaweed and loads of insects.

The pigeons put in a couple of appearances but were very skittish due to 2 hunting Peregrines in the area.

Only BIFs.

Not much else around except flocks of Pacific Swift high overhead. Very quiet locally too. Goosander and Common Sandpiper at Kamiiso a couple of days ago, that's about it.

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Green and Tense

I was in Shikabe on a grey humid summer afternoon watching the Japanese Green Pigeons.................

I'm updating this blog whilst the very tense end to the first Ashes test goes on in the background. If I ignore it and switch the sound off, wickets will fall. It worked twice so far but Australia still edging towards the total.

If England lose after having Australia at 117/9 in the first innings I will not be happy.

Not a vintage day for photos, too overcast and the sea was too calm meaning no splashes when they came down to the rocks..............

Back to the torture of the cricket then............my last 5 minutes of radio silence didn't get a wicket...............


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The heat returns..........

A Red Necked Stint at Kamiiso yesterday, still showing some of its breeding plumage.

The waders have returned.

And so has the heat: very hot and humid, 32 outside and no escape to aircon here in Hokkaido either.

There were 5 stints on the beach.

The beach was filthy, the remains of dozens of barbecues from the holidays last week.

The stints were not exactly shy but they were a tad skittish.

The only other wader around was an even shyer Eastern Curlew. No shots of that worth posting.

God it was hot. And today is even hotter............

On Sunday we were in Sawara and Shikabe. The coast was foggy which meant the temperature was more bearable........but the light was crappy for the Japanese Green Pigeons.

There were  a few waders around. 2 Terek Sandpiper, 2 Red Necked Stint and this Greenshank.........

When Prior and Swann were in I thought we could do it.

Liverpool? Well what a great start to the season that was.


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Quiet days continue

A Japanese Green Pigeon perched on a roadside wire just outside Hakodate last weekend.

A very quiet week, the humidity dropped slightly and I've been watching the Olympics on and off, wow some of the GB team are medal winning machines. Nice to see the footy team going out on penalties in the QF, where have I seen that before?

I got a new smartphone (the Galaxy S3) which has given me headaches trying to set up everything as I like.

Not much birdwise in town, no autumn waders yet. A Great Egret and a species of Snipe in the ricefields in Ono were most noteworthy species.

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The annual lull.........

Well it's that time of year again. Mid July heralds a month or so of very quiet birding, most of the summer stuff has stopped singing and now I'm just waiting for the waders to start passing through in mid August.

The 2 staples at this time of year are the fishing Ospreys at various locales and the Japanese Green Pigeons at Shikabe. I had no luck with the Osprey pics last Wednesday at Yakumo (despite there being four of them fishing at the rivermouth) and headed out to Shikabe this afternoon on a dark grey afternoon more in hope than expectation. Recently every time I've been there have been fishermen standing on the rocks where they come down to drink but today I had the beach all to myself........

The light was terrible and I couldn't get that close to them but I managed to get a few shots of what is one of my favourite local species.

It was a bit dark for BIF shots.........

Not much else around here but I was surprised when 2 Grey Tailed Tattlers flew overhead heading north.............what's their story? Pretty late to be heading north to breed........

At Onuma earlier I spent a couple of hours getting bitten by mosquitoes.

If the above pigeons seem exotic to UK birders the Little Grebes and Moorhens at Onuma are reassuringly familiar. The latter is much scarcer (and shyer) than it is in the UK.

Nothing much in Hakodate the last few days, just common stuff like this Brown Eared Bulbul.

No sport on TV or the internet this weekend...........thank god for beer.

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