2017 Best of #9

A final batch of photos from this year.................

After the Storm

The typhoon came and went..................

On this day (August 24th)...........................

August 24th 2014.

A Red-necked Pharalope near Tomakomai 3 years ago today. This is a bird that can occur locally in very large numbers offshore (usually in spring) but I've only ever seen them away from the open ocean 2 or 3 times..................

Shame it wasn't in summer plumage.

2104 Best of #5

 

Some of my fave shots from autumn until the end of 2014.................

Wader season at last #3

A Red Necked Pharalope at Atsuma a few days ago...................

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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Tomakomai Pelagic

A Black Footed Albatross off Tomakomai yesterday, one of around 20 or so offshore...........

I joined Tomoyuki and friends for a 4 hour pelagic trip. It was a warm overcast day but the sea was fairly calm (a good job as the boat was pretty small) and the birding was great, I got 6 new birds for my Japanese list and 5 of those were lifers.

Bird of the day (for me at least) was the Black Footed Albatross.

Some were quite tame and approached the boat looking for scraps........

Looks at that huge bill...........

I fired off lots of shots but I kind of forgot to get any close ups (some of these shots were under 200mm).............

Still there's always next time..............

My first ever Albatross species.........

  

I tried some action shots but these weren't so successful, I need to pay more attention to my technique/settings here........

The Albatosses were very confiding but most of the seabirds weren't so approachable. WE also saw a more distant Laysan Albatross but it was on the way back and we didn't have time to stop and take a good look.

Tomoyuki and friends were very good with IDs. The most common birds were Sooty and Streaked Shearwaters. the latter were easy to identify.

Wheres the former looked very like Short Tailed Shearwater, not sure if I'd be able to tell the difference to be honest.

There were big flocks of Sootys but none of my pics from yesterday are worth posting, as I said, next time next time......

It was difficult to photograph birds from a small boat, I'm a total landlubber and I was aware that I could slip and be tipped off any time and found it tricky to move around. Most of today's shots (except the Albatross ones) were pretty poor, not helped by the fact I'd decided to put a protective filter on my lens. My last trip on a boat had resulted in my lens front element getting soaked with sea spray and unuseable until I could get home and clean it properly. There was no spray this time and I took it off towards the end and the IQ improved noticeably.

Plus the fact I need to experiment and practise a bit more with some of the 7D's AF capabilties........

The species of the day for most on the trip was this. A crappy record shot of a Fork Tailed Storm Petrel.

There was even a flock of them around.............

There were also lots of Red Necked Pharalope, these have a knack of always flying just out of photo range............

A few Skua were also seen, Arctic and Pomarine..........here's a record shot of an Arctic resting on some flotsam.

Other birds included Rhinoceros Auklet, Common Tern, Great Crested Grebe and a flock of Japanese Green Pigeon flying around the harbour. On the drive up we got a surprisingly large number of Grays Grasshopper Warbler calling from various roadside locales and Tomakomai's famous resident Magpies.

We saw some Dolphins and for a few minutes what we thought was a pair of Minke Whales. On closer inspection it turned out to be a tree.........

Thanks to Tomoyuki for organising the trip, it was great and I hope to go back at least one more time this year. And thanks to my wife for getting up at 2am to drive us up there..........

We were lucky with the weather on the day of the boat trip, for 3 days before there was a typhoon with very heavy rain and the rain returned today too. On driving back we had a real south Hokkaido rarity: a traffic jam. Heading back south wasn't so bad but the northbound lane was tailed back for many miles. This weekend is one of Japan's three big holiday periods and we usually avoid travel at those times.

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Liverpool's first game of the season tonight. 2010 has been a footballing nightmare so far, will this be when things begin to look up?