A rainy Sunday

It was raining all day today.................

Another spring cliche............

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom in Hakodate.....................

Spring migration moving slowly still..........

We headed north yesterday.............

2017 Best Of #5

Some more shots from earlier in the year, these are from spring.................

A night away in late spring............

We spent Sunday night camping near Oshamanbe................

Lords of the flies

Red-cheeked Starlings were feasting on flies earlier this week.....................

A quiet end to Golden Week

Golden Week 2017 has come to a quiet end..................

Another failed early rise

I was up at 5am again this morning. Surely there would be some interesting migrants in the park?

Nope.

There was only a single Eastern Crowned Warbler on the river and a lone Japanese Bush Warbler in the park, an Osprey flew overhead briefly and there were still a few Dusky Thrush about. The wrynecks were still calling in the park but were high up in the trees, the one near my apartment was also calling but I couldn't see it.

Red-cheeked Starlings were everywhere though............and it was another beautiful warm spring day. Maybe we need some nasty weather to bring some new birds.............

Sakura

The cherry blossoms are in full bloom.............

Travelling light

My battered old 100-400 MK1 is so full of dust and also suffering from various other ailments that it has been sent off to the Canon service centre for an insurance quote...........

The 500 f4 is too heavy and too attention drawing to carry around town. So today I walked around near my flat with the Canon PowerShot SX50 HS...........hmmmm.............

Ujihodai #1

Some shots from Yakumo last Saturday................

Crossbill and sakura

A Crossbill in the cherry blossoms in the local park yesterday morning............

Long Toed Stint and other stuff..............

A Long Toed Stint at Yakumo this afternoon...............

2 weeks just went by...............

2 male Red Cheeked Starlings in Hakodate this afternoon.

2 weeks have just gone by, now we are in the second half of 2013. I was pretty busy in the second half of June and did little birding despite the great weather. Nothing around anyway, only the common stuff feeding youngsters far away from prying lenses. Last week I was watching an Osprey nest on an offshore stack. 2 chicks were present but it was too far away for a photo (I  even tried digiscoping for the first time in ages but the results were terrible). A Kentish Plover south of Esashi was the only bird of any interest anywhere.

I heard secondhand of a Ruddy Kingfisher nest in Onuma. I have a vague idea of where it is and may pay a visit  in the next couple of weeks. Notice I only said 'may'. It isn't only the prospect of standing around in the forest getting eaten alive by mosquitoes whilst realizing the birds are too far away for my lens and it is too dark anyway. Last time there were 30 or more photographers sporting 500 or 600mm lenses and the atmosphere wasn't always  friendly. I often bump into several of the local bird photographers now and those ones are nice enough but there are some real selfish unfriendly characters around too who regard the kingfishers as 'their' birds. What the hell, I'll probably go. It may give me a chance to practice sarcastic one liners in Japanese. (Oh I see, are they your f**ing pets then?).

A bit lazy and unmotivated to do anything at the minute. I'm waiting for  the start of the Ashes. I've been following the England cricket team since around 1984 and this is probably the first time in my cricket following life that England go into an Ashes series as clear favourites. I'm not 100% sure if that is a good thing though...............

I'm not really much of a rugby fan (not at all actually)  but the Lions games are on TV here and the first 2 were pretty tense and exciting even for someone like me. Unlike the cricket (or footy) I don't really care if 'we' lose. That simple fact makes watching sport much more enjoyable sometimes.................

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Predictable...............

Well it is that time of year again. Summer is very predictable in town, only a few species, 3 of which you see above.....................

Not much to report. It hasn't rained for a couple of weeks. Really, that's all.

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Another day in the park

A Great Spotted Woodpecker looking out of its front door in Goryokaku Park. I saw them copulating several times (not as interesting as it sounds).................

Lots of migrants around but nothing especially interesting. Several Asian Brown Flycatcher (one of which may have been a female Narcissus but I was paying attention to the woodpeckers), 2 Red flanked Bluetail, 3 or 4 Eastern Crowned Warbler and 1 male Blue and White Flycatcher...................which would have been a nice shot but for the branch.

Lots of Red Cheeked Starling including some trying to take over the woodpecker hole.

The Black Winged Stilt was still there. I took lts and lots and lots of photos of it the last couple of days which I''ll sort through later and post in the upcoming fallow summer months. Here are some purely random ones of the hundreds and hundreds on my hard drive............

It let me approach it to within a couple of metres and I could lie down on the (dry) grass and get some low angle ones................

It was attracting some attention from the hordes of people in the park looking at the cherry blossoms. The weekend is coming and the park will be heaving.................I suspect this was the last time for me to see it.

Here is a short jerky video I made and uploaded to youtube with no editing.

Another spring day...............

It was a beautiful spring day, the first real warmish weather since the back end of October. I got up early and walked to Goryokaku park and there were Japanese White-eyes everywhere.

Today was a good day for migrants. In the park I saw Pale and Brown Thrush (and lots of Duskys), 4 Rustic Bunting with 2 males in summer plumage, Eastern Crowned Warbler, Red Flanked Bluetail, Asian Brown Flycatcher and this male Blue and White Flycatcher.

This is a Japanese Bush Warbler, a very common summer visitor but usually very skulking. This one wasn't............

There were lots of Red Cheeked Starling around.............

Some were even trying to muscle in on this Great Spotted Woodpecker's new spring/summer residence............

The Black Winged Stilt was still around in the morning..............

Why wasn't the weather like this on my 2 days off last week????

At least I had some free time today (and tomorrow). I was hoping for some Narcissus Flycatchers.................maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow................
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Meet the Locals #3

(Lousy weather in town the last few days so forgive another dip into the archives.........)

RED CHEEKED STARLING (Sturnus philippensis)

A male Red Cheeked Starling , also known as Chestnut Cheeked Starling and Violet Backed Starling.

This is the more interesting of the 2 breeding starling species here in Japan. It isn't well known outside the region, in fact it only breeds in north Honshu, Hokkaido and Sakhalin (The Russian island to the north of Hokkaido) where it is a summer visitor. It winters is southeast Asia. There are no subspecies or races.

As you can see the male is a stunning bird and is very photogenic, especially during the cherry blossom season.









The female is rather plain compared to the male but not without her charms.






They arrive in Hakodate in the last week of April and are in fact a very common urban bird, there is a colony in Goryokaku Park and several smaller ones along the river. They are pretty much everywhere in summer in a variety of habitats including the forest at Onuma and Mt Hakodate. All these shots were taken within a 10 minute walk of my apartment, they are probably the most conspicuous bird of early summer.





The young leave the nest in late June and there is always a frenzy of activity in the local bushes. The adults are busy bringing them all kinds of bugs...........



.

And fruits too..................



The youngsters just sit around looking comical waiting to be fed...............





And then after late June they completely go off my radar. Once the young have fledged they all flock together in skittish family groups of 20 or so and suddenly become very wary and are lost in the summer foliage. My main view of them after early July is small tight flocks flying to roosting sites just before sunset.

They leave in late September to spend a winter in the sun..................









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