The end of autumn approaches..........

It was another mild autumn weekend, surely the last one before the weather turns.............

2018 Best Of #3

Some more shots from earlier in the year...............

A lone Diver...........

A Red-throated Diver in one of the ports to the north of town yesterday...............

2017 Best of #9

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

Red-throated Diver

A nice find in one of the ports near Yakumo..............

A tired Diver

The tired/injured Red Throated Diver was still in the same place in the west of town on Monday..............

Before the deluge

A tired looking Red Throated Diver offshore near Kamiiso this afternoon. Probably an injured bird but it was a bit far off to see any damage.............this photo is already a heavy crop as it is.

There were several Gadwall around as well as a flighty Crossbill flock, some Black Headed Gulls in summer plumage, Great Egret and the usual common stuff. Spring migration will surely kick in very soon, hope it's a deluge on any days off I have coming up................

On this day (March 8th).....................

March 8th 2012

A Red Throated Diver in Kamiiso 3 years ago today. It was very tame as it drifted into the port................probably because it had a badly damaged wing. I hope it recovered...............

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

March 19th 2010.

A Red Throated Diver up nice and close in the harbour at Kamiiso 3 years ago today. These occasionally visit harbours when they are sick or injured but this one seemed to look OK......................

Linked to Wild Bird Wednesday.

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

A slushy day in a harbour

A Red Throated Diver in the harbour at Kamiiso this afternoon.

The thaw has begun and deep lush lies everywhere. Cars get stuck in it and I found out my 'waterproof' winter sneakers are not in fact waterproof.

The Diver had a broken wing.

It was very tame and swam right towards me.

This is a species usually seen well offshore and is nice to see up close, I hope its wing mends soon.

Actually do bird wings repair themselves? I have no idea.

I got lucky with the diver, I had given up on the harbour and decided to go back for one last check and the diver had appeared as well as this similarly tame Great Crested Grebe.

None of the other 3 winter grebe species were around but both species of cormorant were, here's a Temincks in breeding plumage.

All the common duck species were around including several groups of Black Scoter.

6 species of Gull, Whooper Swan and Great Egret were the other noteworthy species.

So this winter saw the heaviest snow since records began in Hakodate and now it is melting little by little....................I can't wait for spring.

Thanks for clicking this link.


人気ブログランキングへ

OMG no car for a while................

I went back to Kamiso today with high hopes after last week. Today the light was good and the wind not too strong, perfect for photographing birds in the harbour. Only one problem. There were no birds at all when I arrived. Just a few of the resident Gulls. I looked around a few other spots and found a few ducks and other types of Gull but nothing especially interesting. Black Scoter, Glaucous Gull and that's about it.

When I returned to the harbour the above Red Throated Diver was there. Judging by the odd shaped beak it must be the same one from last week. Most of the time it was way out in the middle of the harbour.......it was a bit more active than last week at least.

I sat down and eventually it swam a bit closer, dived and popped up a few metres away.

It then swam out of the harbour and back out to sea where this photo was taken.

The only other birds in the harbour were 2 female Scaup, one female Goldeneye and this male Red Breasted Merganser.

Not a single Grebe anywhere, even on the sea.

I took the train to Kamiso, the first time I'd taken the train there since this day with the Red Necked Stints last year. I may have to do a lot more train journeys as our car is officially dead, it's not worth fixing and is probably too dangerous to drive anywhere in its current state. We aren't really in the position to get a replacement: that will have to wait until the autumn so it looks like 6 or so months without wheels. I'll miss quite a few interesting birds; the spring/autumn wader passage at Yakumo, the offshore Shearwater/Pharalope movements at Esan in May, the breeding warblers and wetland stuff at Oshamanbe......................but it can't be helped I suppose.

So I'll have to concentrate on stuff nearer home. You can't get any nearer than this, a Hawfinch snapped out of my living room window this morning.........

Didn't know they could do that with their heads.

Red Throated Diver and some old friends..........

We headed over to Kamiso this morning to check the harbour again. Yesterday had been very very windy and the Red Throated Diver must have taken refuge in the relative calm of the harbour. I could even take this video. handheld out of the car. This is the original with terrible sound (it was very windy and I think my hand was touching the camera's internal microphone).

And here it is with the sound replaced by some sound effects.........

It looked absolutely knackered. And some of its beak appears to be missing, look at he lower mandible..........

There were hardly any fisherman on the harbour side, we got some great shots of the Black Necked Grebes which I'll post in a day or two. I filled up a 16GB card again, including the shots from earlier in the week I have about 1500 photos on my hard drive to sort through. And I already deleted all the obviously bad ones..............

There were 2 Red Necked Grebes today as well as the various duck species which today also included a few very wary Wigeon. My wife was sick of the harbour so we headed over to Onuma to feed the Nuthatches and Tits.

Our clapped out old banger of a car was making all kinds of worrying noises and we decided to head home.............it may be a while before we see the Nuthatches again..........

I  now have to sort through all those Black Necked Grebe photos. I swear I spend more time processing photos than taking them, sometimes it almost feels like 'work'. If only I could get paid for this!

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.