Quiet Ports

The mild weather continued Sunday............

On this day (March 19th)....................

March 19th 2015.

A Red-necked Grebe in the local park 3 years ago today.

This is the only time I've seen it inland in south Hokkaido, they are usually fairly common offshore in spring and occasionally visit the fishing ports too..................

Surprise in the park.............

A Red Necked Grebe in the local park.................

17

A Great Cormorant at Onuma today with nesting materials. All the waterbirds were concentrated on one ice free patch of the lake and there were a lot of birds it has to be said.

Not a great picture but this species is quite rare in north Japan and usually occurs only on freshwater. There is a colony at Onuma, it differs from the very similar and much commoner Temincks Cormorant in having a brown sheen to its plumage (the latter has a greenish sheen).

All I could get were BIFs today and not very good ones either.

There were also huge flocks of Pintail and various other ducks around as well as lots of Grey Heron and several Great Egret. The latter were coming into summer plumage.

The Grey Herons were catching large fish in an ice free pond.

The tame Nuthatches were around as were all the common resident species.

I saw 17 species of duck today. The most intersting were Smew and Mandarin at Onuma and pairs of Falcated Duck and Gadwall at Kamiiso. No good shots at all, only a hastily grabbed BIF of a female Mandarin survived the cull.

Other stuff around today included Whooper Swan, Brent Goose, Osprey, Sparrowhawk, Little Grebe, Coot, Grear Crested Grebe and Red Necked Grebe. Here is one of the latter at Sawara, unfortunately it was caught up in some fishing line and was looking in very poor shape.

For some reason the ports at Shikabe and Sawra had very low water levels and were almost birdless, I have no idea why the water levels were so low (I never really notice much in the way of tides here).

So it looks like spring is just round the corner then...........

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Another grey Sunday

A quiet Sunday here in south Hokkaido, tight finances meant we didn't want to spend a lot so we just stuck around town.

The above Whooper Swans were sitting in a snowfield in Ono. Actually it is a paddyfield, in a 6 or so weeks the farmers will be ploughing it and preparing for planting. I noticed the first Skylarks of the year in the same place and there was also a small flock of Rook.

This is amazingly difficult to photograph, they are so wary compared to the resident crow species. It is actually a fairly scarce winter visitor but as I grew up seeing loads of them in England I tend not to bother photographing them much, this BIF was the best one I could get today.

Nothing at Kamiiso apart from the common winter seaducks so I ended up in the bay area, the light was terrible. Lots more common winter water birds here. These are 2 of the more interesting ones, a Pelagic Cormorant and Red Necked Grebe.

So Liverpool's season becomes more embarrassing every fixture (Wigan?!?!).

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Spring stuff

A Red Necked Grebe coming into summer plumage. A very dark and cloudy day when I took these.

It's been a little chilly the last few days in Hakodate but the spring birds are starting to arrive.................

In the same place as the grebe I saw my first Swallow of spring and also my first wader.........

The first time I've ever photographed a Common Sandpiper (!).

Migrants were also present on the river near my flat.

This was one of a pair of Red Flanked Bluetails. They didn't come any closer (even the above shot is a crop). This is one of my target species this spring, I have to get a good shot of it. Well, not have to as such but it's a really attractive bird that is common in spring but until now it has been beyond me to get a decent shot of it.

Other migrants included several Japanese Bush Warbler, a male Japanese Thrush, Common Buzzard, Bullheaded Shrike, Grey Wagtail, Siberian Stonechat and Black Faced Bunting. Whilst I was waiting in vain for the Bluetails to come closer a small flock of Coal Tit (presumably migrants too) kept me entertained.

I watched 'Surrogates' the other night. Normally I avoid Bruce Willis movies like the plague but this one wasn't so bad.

I've just been working out the permutations that would see Liverpool finishing 4th. Basically Spurs and City need to lose this weekend (they both have very hard games). City then have to draw against Spurs and Villa. Villa need to draw or (better) lose to B'ham. Bolton need to get a draw at Spurs. Liverpool need to win their 3 remaining games (which includes beating Chelsea). It would help if West Ham and Burnley have something to play for on the last day and Hull don't.

There need to be a lot of results coming together for that to happen.

Black Throated Diver

A Black Throated Diver in one of the local harbours this morning. It came close to the quayside allowing me to fire off hundred or so shots.

Exposure was tricky, a black and white bird on the sea on a very bright day. Most of my keepers were when the light was behind me of course.

There were loads of little tiny fish around so I guess it was feasting on those.............

I think it's a Black Throated Diver and not the very similar Pacific Diver. It appeared to have the diagnostic white patch on its flanks although you can't see it so well in most of these photos.

A nice addition to my photo collection, it'll go alongside the Red Throated Diver from last month.

Also around was a lone scruffy looking Black Necked Grebe, a few Scaup, several flocks of Red Breasted Merganser and half a dozen Red Necked Grebe.

The weather has been great the last week but until today the birding was very very quiet indeed. An Osprey and a Goshawk were nice flyovers on the river and the first Oriental Turtle Dove appeared last Sunday. The female Gadwall has been sticking around, here are 3 photos from 3 separate days.

And here is a very short video of a drumming Great Spotted Woodpecker in Goryokaku Park.

I got up to watch the 2 Champions League games, I wasn't surprised Arsenal lost but quite how Man U could throw it away after leading 3-0 is beyond me.

Liverpool aren't going to finish 4th. Only the Europa Cup then. Should I get up in the middle of the night to watch them against Benfica?

So we may get a car by Saturday, paperwork permitting. I hope the weather holds.

After our car died last month my wife's laptop conked out last Sunday meaning after buying the car we then had to buy her a new PC. Never ever buy a computer made by Sharp.

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Some more harbour birds........

I went back to the harbour at Kamiso, the birds were basically the same but it was even darker, most of today's shots were at ISO 800.

There were slightly fewer birds. There were lots of people fishing from the side of the harbour: 3 Grebes got snagged in the fishing lines and managed to pull a fishing rod into the water, they swam off with the rod following them, sadly I don't rate their chances of survival very highly.

Like I say, very dark meaning lots of underexposed shots that came out noisy in postprocessing.

Some shots would have been great if the light had been better.

There were about 30 of them today............

Yesterday I saw thousands and thousands of Red Breasted Merganser offshore. A few ventured into Kamiso harbour again.........

This is a female.

And this creepy looking one is a young male moulting into adult plumage.

There were 2 Great Crested Grebes on the sea. I saw a Little Grebe on the river yesterday so that means all 5 species of Grebe are in Hakodate at the moment. The Red Necked was still around today.

The sun came out just before I left............

There were several Glaucous Gull around, one of 7 Gull species in and around the harbour.

Here's a bird I've never photographed before: a Red Throated Diver. This was the other side of the sea wall.

I really want to get those Grebes in good light................

Liverpool lost again, I've stopped caring.