A rainy day in the ports

It's been raining all day.................

48

A Pacific Diver near Yakumo this afternoon..............

The seasons are changing.

Still there

The Ural Owl was back in its hole in Omuma and the Pacific Diver was still in its port east of Hakodate..................

Pacific Diver

I had an unexpected free morning and we headed out east of town where I found a Pacific Diver.................

Still in limbo

A Grey Headed Woodpecker, a few days ago in a park in the east of Hakodate.

It was a grey grey morning, these shots were at ISO 1600, usually a no no on the 7D.

Lots of tame common birds in the parks at this time of year.

No autumn colours yet, it has been too mild and wet recently.

Out at Menagawa I spotted this bird offshore.

A Pacific Diver?

I ordered my lens on 15 September and they said it would take 'about a month to arrive'. It could/should arrive this weekend......................the wait is torture.

I hope England don't f**k up against the might of Montenegro tonight. Should I get up and put myself through yet more torture?

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The F Word

2 Black Footed Albatross off Tomakomai yesterday morning...............

F as in FOG.

It has been bright and sumnny the last few days but during the 4 hours or so we were on the boat it was foggy..................making it difficult to a) spot birds and b) photograph them.

Luckily the albatross were up close so the poor visibility didn't matter so much.

Some people on the boat were hoping for more albatross species but for me one is enough..............

Despite the foggy weather it was a good trip. There were lots and lots of birds on the sea................shame about the visibility. Lots of Ancient Murrelet and Rhinoceros Auklet but the commonest auk was Brunnichs Guillemot................

There were also Short Tailed and Sooty Shearwater (not sure if I can distinguish these by myself). Lots of Pacific Diver too but they were very skittish.

Both species of pharalope were around but in small numbers..............some heavy cropping going on here.

I see other peoples blogs/galleries and I can't believe how good some of their pelagic shots are. OK we had fog yesterday and good light may have helped some of thse shots but I find focusing very hard on a moving boat and missed numerous BIF chances and even birds just bobbing around on the water presented a great challenge that I didn't really rise to.

Another challenge that I failed to rise to was putting on the lifejacket by myself. I know it should be easy and a 5 year old could do it but for some reason (and this was my 5th boat trip) whenever I pick it up I look at it blankly and just cannot work out how it goes on. Someone always patiently helps me but my god they must think I'm retarded or something....................

Other birds on the trip included my first Grays Grasshopper Warbler, Sand Martin, Pacific Swift and Black Browed Reed Warbler of the year as well as Japanese Green Pigeon, Osprey, Eastern Marsh Harrier, Siberian Blue Robin and lots and lots of Lathams Snipe................
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A weekend away in May

Some Red Necked Pharalope seen on the Tomakomai pelagic trip yesterday.

A Pacific Diver in sumer plumage, we saw several of these including one fairly close to the boat, close enough for us to hear its eerie call above the sound of the wind and waves.

It was a good say for alcids. Two of those we saw were lifers...........the bird of the day for most on the boat was this Long Billed Murrelet, here's a very heavily cropped record shot.

Most of the photos are pretty heavily cropped actually. There were also lots of Brunnichs Guillemots, some in full summer plumage, some not. This was another new bird for me.

Quite a few Ancient Murrelets were around too but the commonest alcid of the day was Rhinoceros Auklet.

My 'target' bird (at least for photos) was Red Necked Pharalope, there were some around but not the vast flocks I had been hoping for.

It was very difficult (for me at least) to photograph them from the boat. The sea was a little choppy and the movement up and down of the boat and waves combined with a narrow filed of view between the people sat in front of me made it really hard ro get a lock on the birds. I'm not really familiar with photography from a ship and I am also very unsteady on my feet on a small boat................

Still it was great to see such a beautiful bird up close.........

BIF shots were slightly easier.

They seem to have found something tasty near this buoy..........

It was a long day (7 hours on a fairly small boat) but an enjoyable one. No Albatross, Skuas or Terns but we did see a few Short Tailed Shearwater. One of the people on the boat was Mark Brazil, a well- known Hokkaido based birder and author of several books about birds in Japan and east Asia, it was nice chatting to someone who really knows their stuff.

We had driven up to Tomakomai the day before, on the way we saw several roadside Lathams Snipe in Oshamanbe.

I tried to take a video..............

On the beach there were some waders. Ruddy Turnstone, lots of Grey Tailed Tattlers, Common Sandpiper and some Red Necked Stint, the latter were coming into summer plumage.

I was very surprised to see 3 Yellow Wagtail with the stints. Again, heavy cropping going on here..............

Yellow Wagtails are pretty scarce in Japan, one subspecies breeds in north Hokkaido. This one is a different subspecies to that  however, it has a blue head as you can see (the Hokkaido one doesn't).

Other birds seen on the way included Pacific Swift, Osprey and some of Tomakomai's famous Magpies.

This ia another scarce bird in Japan and is normally only seen in the south (it is abundant in Korea however). 20 or so years ago they appeared in Tomakomai, a bit of a mystery there......

I pottered around in Utonai-ko on Saturday afternoon. Eastern Crowned Warbler, Siberian Rubythroat, Brown Thrush, Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Lathams Snipe, Oriental Cuckoo, Wigeon, Pintail, Whooper Swan, Mute Swan, White Tailed Eagle, Eastern Marsh Harrier, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Reed Bunting, Great Spotted and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Marsh Tit and Russet Sparrow were around but nothing posed for the camera.........

Thanks again for Tomoyuki Namba for arranging the boat trip, I hope to join them again 2 or 3 times this year.........

Thanks also to my wife for doing a lot of driving.

There were some issues on blogger last week, I couldn't log in or do anything for a while and it appears some comments have disappeared too (if you left any comments last Thursday/Friday they seem to have vanished).

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