2018 Best Of #4

Some finches and buntings from last winter................

Another day with the Buntings..........

Both species of Bunting were still around on Monday...........

A pair of Longspurs

The temperatures rose for a couple of days, the rains came and now we're living a slushy nightmare.................

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

January 21st 2011.

A Lapland Bunting on a beach in Hakodate 7 years ago today.

This is a scarce but probably overlooked winter visitor to Hokkaido. I've seen them in several places but they tend to favour windswept beaches blocked to most normal people by snowdrifts..............

On this day (January 25th).............

January 25th 2011.

2 Lapland Bunting on the beach at Nanaehama 2 years ago today, they spent several weeks there in fact. These are an occasional visitor to the local beaches in winter, I've also seen them at Yakumo and up at Mukawa too.

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

A Snowy Sunday in December

Some adult Stellers Sea Eagles at Yakumo this afternoon. These (and most of the eagle BIF shots below) were taken in a 5 minute period when the blizzards stopped and the skies cleared briefly.

The day started off on a very cold windswept beach looking for Snow Buntings in a blizzard. This has been one of my bogey species in Japan, everyone else seems loads of 'em but until today not me (though I've seen them in the UK before).

There were 6 of them. They were difficult to approach and like I say the weather was just atrocious.

In amongst them were 4 Lapland Buntings, they were even shyer..........this was the best I could manage.

The eagles were up in the trees sitting out the blizzard.............this one was during a very temporary lull in the snow.

When the sun did break through several of the eagles took off..........this is an adult White Tailed Eagle.

Most of the birds my camera was chasing were Stellers though.........

The weather soon closed in again..............

And finally an immature of both species as the skies grew gloomier and gloomier.......

It was the first real heavy snow of the winter, it was just about possible to walk off road in Yakumo today but that'll probably be the last time until spring.

Not much else around, we had a look at the port in Oshamanbe, there were only Scaup, Black Necked Grebe and Goldeneye. Lots of Great Egrets everywhere too.

Liverpool won, now up to #6, will they get any higher?

Thanks for clicking this link

An odd one in the pine trees

I went to the small local park this morning to check for Crossbills. There weren't any there but I was surprised to find this Great Egret sitting in the pine trees..........

A nice sunny morning, this and the white plumage made it one of those very rare days when I use ISO100 on my camera.............

Also around were Daurian Redstart, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Hawfinch, a lone male Wigeon, Dusky Thrush, Coal Tit whilst in Goryokaku Park there was a flock of 15-20 Brambling and the male Grey Headed Woodpecker, no shots from there alas.

Yesterday a friend tried to drive me to Yakumo but we had to turn back because he got his car keys mixed up with another set (his wife's car) and we thought we had been locked out of the car after a stop at a convenience store..............mechanics and a locksmith came before the mistake was discovered...............it's funny now at least..........

At Onuma we fed the Nuthatches.

Among the tame Whooper Swans and Mallards there were a few Goldeneye but the main point of interest was a violently bubbling hot spring that seems to have emerged.............it means an ice free bit of lake at least............

Well out of range for a decent shot were 4 Smew, 3 males and one female.

Like I say they were well out of range........

We were able to sneak a quick look at Nanaehama, the Lapland Buntings were still there..........

I've tried not to mention it but the road construction outside my apartment has been going on since that day I got back from England (so about 6 weeks), my god I'm getting sick of it.

I've been watching 'Peep Show' on youtube, this completely passed me by here in Japan and I have to say it's pretty funny.

I watched the Manc derby, great goal by Rooney but please not another Man U title, christ I'd rather Arsenal won it.

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

#200 sneaks up quietly

A couple of nice sunny days in Hakodate this week. Yesterday I headed back to Nanaehama to see if the 2 Lapland Buntings were present and indeed they were as you can see from the photos above.

I tried crouching down on the beach, a mistake as it led to pain radiating down my sciatic nerve, my back is still knackered I'm sad to say. I can still only walk at half speed but this isn't such a problem in the snow and ice as everyone walks slowly.............

I noticed flocks of Black Scoter offshore giving their eerie cries, I didn't have any binoculars with me so I checked them through my camera. One or 2 of them looked a bit odd so I took some shots and lo and behold when I came back and checked on the computer there were 2 female White Winged Scoters amongst them.................a local tick and #200 on my Hakodate list.

I walked down to Kamiiso (very slowly), on the way were some Wigeon and Brent Geese........

In the harbour at Kamiiso were a few common species including Scaup, Goldeneye, Pelagic and Temincks Cormorant as well as several Goosander..........

Offshore were big rafts of Red Breasted Merganser and a few Great Crested Grebes too. Other noteworthy species included Glaucous and Glaucous Winged Gull, Great Egret and Whooper Swan.

On the way back from the train window I noticed a Grey Goose dozing in the river, from its size it was probably a White Fronted Goose (which I sometimes see in town) but if I go back next week and it turns out to be a Bean Goose that'll be #201....................

Not much near my flat recently, a Black Faced Bunting and Oriental Turtle Dove (2 species I normally don't see in winter) were around today as were Wren, Coal Tit and Hawfinch plus the usual common winter stuff.

Thanks for clicking this link.

#199

I  once again braved snowdrifts and blizzards and was rewarded with the 199th species on my Hakodate list. 2 Lapland Buntings had been seen on a small beach in town, I went there a couple of days ago but couldn't find them (the waves were very high on the beach I think meaning they couldn't forage there) but today I saw them within a minute of arriving............

They were very unobtrusive and easy to miss. In fact they were pretty tame but after a few minutes a huge blizzard hit and I was forced off the beach, back through the snowdrifts and sought refuge in a convenience store. After an hour's really heavy snow I gave up and trudged back to the station for my 4 minute ride home (If I didn't have a slipped disc and it wasn't snowing so much I would have walked).

Thanks to Kim for the directions to find it..........

So 199! I wonder what #200 will be? Great Grey Shrike on Sunday maybe?

Thanks for clicking this link.

2010 begins

Some very cold looking Glaucous Gulls at Mukawa earlier this week.

2010 has begun with a huge snowfall, we went out today but it was a whiteout with few birds to see and no photos at all. There must have been 30 or 40cm snow last night and it hasn't stopped snowing all day. It looks like winter 2009/10 may be a pretty cold one here in Hokkaido........

So here is what happened on our end of year trip this week...........

We headed up north on very icy roads (seeing Rook and Daurian Jackdaw on the way) and the first stop was Oshamabe to check the harbour there. The Long Tailed Ducks had arrived for the winter, the above male posed very nicely  for one photo but f**kwit here had the wrong camera settings so the shot was spoiled somewhat. By the time I'd changed the settings they'd swam off into the middle of the port...........

There were Black Necked Grebe and several other species of duck here.............like these Scaup and Goldeneye.

We then headed over a mountain pass to Toyoura and somewhat surprisingly the sun came out and for the rest of the day we got the only decent weather of the whole 5 day trip.

The river here is well known for eagles. There are less than at Yakumo (I counted about 20 or so) and most of them were White Tailed Eagles. There look to be some great spots for photos along the river (and close to the road too) but on this day they were all high up in the sky........

From here eastwards there was almost no snow (that would change on the way back though). We saw several Magpies in Tomakomai, Peregrine, Goshawk as well as lots of Great Egret and Whooper Swans. Our final stop of the day was at Mukawa.

There were lots of raptors here including the above Short Eared Owl. It actually reminded me a lot of the Ribble Marshes, the Owl as well as Hen Harrier and Merlin were around. The former proved tricky to get a shot of, here's the best of a bad bunch.

To complete the feeling like Lancashire in winter theme some Geese flew over too. These weren't Pinkfeet however..........

The White Fronts were presumably heading to the nearby Utonai-ko..........

The raptors were after lots of small birds hiding in the grass............like this Buff Bellied Pipit disturbed by a Merlin.

Before I went I said I had 3 target birds for the trip. Rough Legged Buzzard, Lapland Bunting and Snow Bunting. We saw a lot of Buzzards perched alongside various roads on the trip but it was impossible to stop and check every one. The local Common Buzzards are very white too which adds to the confusion..........here's one at Mukawa.

Still no firm ID on a Rough Legged........

I did get to see Lapland Bunting though. The Harrier and Owl frequently disturbed a small flock of 20 or so smallish birds. I couldn't tell what they were but in terrible light the next morning we went back and saw them clearly enough to ID. A new bird to my Japan list. Here is a very very poor record shot.

No Snow Buntings near Yakumo on the way back either but 1 out of 3 ain't bad.

I liked Mukawa, I had never been there in winter before (I've been several times in spring/summer) and have to say I was impressed. The birding was excellent. In addition to the raptors and Buntings there were lots of ducks offshore including Black and Velvet Scoters and more Glaucous Gulls than you could shake a stick at. These were taken on the way back when the weather had turned nasty.

We spent one night in Mukawa and then headed north. The bulk of the trip was in central Hokkaido in the Furano area. There was some seriously heavy snow here and almost no birds. We stayed in a very nice hotel in the middle of nowhere with superb food for a couple of nights and I lounged around in a warm log room reading a sci-fi novel whilst my wife was happy outside taking macro shots of snowflakes. It was a nice relaxing 2 nights in fact.

The nearby landscapes provided lots of gloomy moody wintry photo opps.

We headed back south stopping at the same places but the weather was so bad we couldn't get out of the car most of the time let alone take any pictures. The Long Taileds didn't want to swim close to the car at Oshamanbe, the eagles at Toyoura were higher up in the sky and by the time we got to Yakumo the blizzard was so intense that my camera simply couldn't focus on the flying eagles..............

The Mukawa stuff compensated for the total lack of birds in central Hokkaido, apart from a few Crows and Sparrows I can't recall seeing anything at all in fact. A Jay or 2 near the hotel..........that's about it.

I hope the snow relents this weekend.

Happy New Year to all regular readers to this blog, I really appreciate you taking the time to leave comments.

Whilst I was away Liverpool won twice and England won the Second Test by an innings. I guess I'll have to go away more often. I could follow the cricket on my wife's laptop (2 of the hotels had internet connections) or on the BBC site on my cellphone. The wonders of technology eh?