Some early April birds.........

I concentrated on the Nutcrackers yesterday but there were some other birds around...............

A quiet end to November

I just had 2 days off but the weather was pretty nasty...................

Some Crossbills in the rain........

It seems to have been raining every Monday for ages....................

A rainy Monday.............

Absolutely awful weather today..................

Another Winter morning in Onuma

A Long Tailed Tit and a Eurasian Jay...............

Monday morning was spent in Onuma again..............

2014 Best of #2

Well another quiet week combined with a heavy cold means no new photos to post so here's some more stuff from earlier in the year............







In late February we went to east Hokkaido...............and I took rather a lot of photographs.

East Hokkaido 2014 #5

After the eaglefest at Rausu I didn't do so much birding...................

East Hokkaido 2014 #1

A White Tailed Eagle at Akan a few days ago.................

We just got back from a weeklong trip to east Hokkaido and back. I was with 3 non birders so it was a birding trip as such...............but I managed to get some in of course.

A Friday morning in Onuma......

A Jay this morning in Onuma. We spent a couple of hours there, it is still snowbound except along the road but there were quite a lot of birds around.

The Jays were eating some of the food we'd left out for the tits and nuthatches.

They were a little shy and seemed to be playing hide and seek a lot of the time.

There were lots of woodpeckers around, no Black alas but plenty of Japanese Pygmys.

This is a common species and although not at all shy is so active it is difficult to get a clear photo of.

This Long Tailed Tit was also very hard to pin down.

There was quite a bit of open water at one end of the lake, the summer Grey Herons and great Cormorants have started arriving as have this species, one of the shyest of them all.

A female Mandarin Duck snapped from the car window, there was also a male but that was behind some branches. They both flew off as soon as I'd taken the above photo, after 5 years I still don't have a single decent shot of one.

Other wildfowl included Whooper Swan, Goosander, Smew, Goldeneye, Wigeon and Pintail, here's one of the latter.

Also present were Goshawk, Peregrine, Brambling, Hawfinch and lots of Oriental Greenfinch singing everywhere. Nothing at Kamiiso except the Great Egret flock and a lone Red Breasted Merganser in the harbour.

I don't even care about Liverpool's capitulation against QPR, I just don't expect them to even try to win league games anymore.

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A grey windy Sunday in March

2 male Black Scoter at Sawara this afternoon, the fishing ports had the usual birds: Scaup, Goldeneye, Red Breasted Merganser, Black Necked and Great Crested Grebe, the usual winter gulls and several Harlequin Duck.

It was sunny but very windy and my fingers were frozen after 10 minutes outside, we headed back to Onuma. The weather was pretty poor here, grey and snowy but the thaw has started, slightly. 2 White Tailed Eagle were sitting on the ice next to an open area in the middle of the lake, the first Great Cormorant of the year had arrived and was swimming around in another area of unfrozen water. The Pintail and Smew were still present as were Goosander, Goldeneye, Whooper Swan and Great Egret.

Most of the common woodland stuff was around including Grey Headed Woodpecker and lots of Jay. The poor light didn't help with the photos, it was very dark. They were foraging on a bank which amazingly................was snow free.

By the time we got back to town it was very overcast, the port in Kamiiso had several Red Breasted Merganser eating rather large flatfish.

So Liverpool appeared to have totally given up and have stopped trying to even win games in the 2011/12 Premier League season. Nice.

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Will it ever stop f*****g snowing?

A Jay at Onuma this afternoon, as you can see it was snowing and there was a ridiculous amount of deep deep snow at Onuma meaning it was difficult to do anything between the blizzards.

The dead tree where we feed the Nuthatches is basically buried, they were still around however.

And the Ural Owl was still in its hole, showing a bit more body today.

Other birds included lots of Rook with a few Daurian Jackdaw thrown in, Pintail, Whooper Swan, Goosander, Smew, the common tits and woodpeckers and lots of Dusky Thrush.

Among all the Duskys was this individual.

A hastily grabbed and heavily cropped shot of a Naumanns Thrush, a recent split from Dusky Thrush and a lifer...............

It's still snowing outside, February 2012 has been a nightmare weather-wise.

The people who live above my apartment are absolutely doing my head in. They are so noisy, all they seem to do is stomp about and slam doors and windows all day. There are only 2 of them: a youngish mother and her son who appears to be about 8. They probably aren't bad people but my god I'm starting to hate them. Every night they bang about for hours, what the hell are they doing? We tried a nice letter to them but now I just bang on the ceiling. Sometimes that works. I would move out but the expense and hassle are too much. For now.

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Winter just round the corner

One of the tame Nuthatches at Onuma, when they come close looking for food you know winter is coming soon...........

We started off the day in Yakumo. The eagles have arrived since we last visited 2 weeks ago. There were about 25 or so, about 60-70% of them seemed to be White Tailed Eagles with the rest being Stellers Sea Eagles, hopefully lots more will arrive presently.

I rarely get good shots of them until the winter really kicks in. These were the best I could manage today..........

Also upstream were Goldeneye, Great Egret, Brown Dipper, Japanese Wagtail, Goosander, Buzzard and lots ands lots of Jay, these were everywhere today.......

At the river mouth were 7 species of Gull, Goshawk, lots of wildfowl including 30 or so Whooper Swan and a flock of Dunlin. I tried to get some duck BIF shots, here's a pair of Wigeon.....

We stopped at Onuma to feed the Nuthatches. 4 species of Woodpecker were around including Grey Headed and Black. In the forest there were flocks of Brambling and Dusky Thrush on the move. Other stuff here included Whooper Swan and huge flocks of Mallard...............the first snow is forecast in a couple of days, winter will come soon I think..........

I got a new 32 inch TV and an ipod touch a couple of days ago. The TV was only slightly more expensive (about ¥7000 difference). WTF?!?!

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Weather keeping me indoors and grumpy..........

5 days into 2010 and I've barely been outside, heavy snow, grey grey skies, slushy/icy/snowbound roads and sidewalks...............so I'm stuck at home getting grumpier by the day. The above Jay was at Onuma a coupe of days ago when the snow relented for a few hours. This one below was taken with a flash, something I almost never have to do for bird pics.

Not much else at Onuma except the common residents.

Lots of Glaucous Gull at Kamiso, a White Tailed Eagle in Ono and a minor invasion of Hawfinch into Hakodate provided some points of  interest in the gloom.

Lots of red berries everywhere, hopefully the Waxwings will be here in a couple of weeks.

The snow scuppered my annual first week of January trip up to Yakumo which always seems to produce

nice photo opps for the eagles. They'll be around for another 7 or 8 weeks of course, fingers crossed the weekend will see an improvement in the weather.