Hoarding

One of the disadvantages of having cheap external hard drives with lots of space is the accumulation of thousands of photos...............

On this day (June 9th)............

June 9th 2008.

A Ruddy Kingfisher at Onuma 4 years ago today. They were always a bit far off to capture with a 400mm lens, this heavy crop was the best I could manage. After 3 consecutive summers with this species in Onuma from 2006-8 I haven't seen any since this pair bred...............

Thanks for clicking this link.......



人気ブログランキングへ

On this day (July 27th).........

July 27th 2007.

A young Ruddy Kingfisher just about to leave its nest 4 years ago in Onuma. In 2007 and 2008 this same tree played host to a family of this scarce visitor to Hokkaido, the tree was right next to the road and there was a scrum of photographers watching them all summer.

Put off by the aforementioned crowds I only went twice and on this day was lucky enough to see the young leave the nest for the first time. This was with my ancient digiscoping rig, most of the time it really wasn't up to the job for anything but record shots like this.

I haven't seen any since 2008, they must have relocated to a quieter nesthole.

Thanks for clicking this link.

On this day (August 10th....................

August 10th 2006.

A fearless young Ruddy Kingfisher at Onuma, it has fledged only a couple of weeks earlier. I was very lucky to get this shot, most of the regular gaggle of photographers with huge lenses missed the opportunity. This was in the forest and I was mercilessly bitten by the mosquitoes which were unbelievably thirsty.

Digiscoped images are usually best if a) the bird is close and b) it doesn't move. This individual ticked both boxes.

Another 'I wish I'd had a decent camera with me' moments, I've never been as near to one since.

On this day (June 5th)....................

June 6th 2007.



Ruddy Kingfisher at Onuma. For 2 years a pair of Ruddy Kingfishers nested close to the road around the edge of Onuma. The scrum of photographers sporting $000's worth of equipment had to be seen to be believed, they must have been the most photographed birds in Hokkaido those 2 summers. They must have chosen another site in 2009 though, well away from prying lenses.


I digiscoped this shot, with an ancient 4MP Nikon compact camera attached to a Pentax 65mm scope. I felt a bit embarrassed next to all those huge white lenses................but I know said lenses cost more than the car we recently bought.

Those Ruddy Kingfishers

I've taken a lot of photos over the last couple of days and I've learned something valuable. People have huge expensive lenses mounted on non-budget DSLR bodies for a reason. I struggled with some forest shots at Onuma........at ISO 800 and with the lens wide open I left most of the photos uncropped. I even used a tripod too.......

Birds out in the open, like these in Ono, are much easier.







So the Ruddy Kingfishers are back in the same tree as last year. Right next to the road. Just a little too far for my 100-400 lens alas and my digiscoping camera seems to have given up the ghost so no respite there either. The only time they came fairly close they were a) hiding behind a branch and b) I had stupidly left the image stabilization off.





My shutter speeds weren't fast enough for flying birds in a green forest. Although the explosion of wood chips as they left the nest hole was pretty impressive.



And the pics weren't much better when they weren't moving much either.......





A couple of miles further round the lake there was Great Spotted Woodpecker nest.





The Woodpeckers had some help...........and this is a bit bizarre I have to say.





This female Red Cheeked Starling seemed a bit confused and insisted on feeding the Woodpecker chicks. Why? Had her own chicks died? Do some birds instinctively provide food when they hear chicks of other species begging for food? Either way the woodpeckers didn't seem to appreciate it and would chase her off every few minutes or so.



Otherwise lots of activity in the forest at Onuma. Lots of singing Warblers, Flycatchers and Thrushes. Wailing calls of Japanese Green Pigeon that sound uncannily like the Clangers, Long Tailed Rosefinch, oh lots of stuff.

Over at Ono there were Stonechat fledglings, more Night Herons and lots of Black Browed Reed Warblers.







Star bird yesterday was an Oriental Pratincole swooping arounnd over the ricefields at Ono (no picture I'm afraid). It was my first new bird of 2008 and a bit of a surprise find. Another surprise was this immature Kittiwake in amongst the gull flocks at Kamiso. The 9th Gull species of the year in Hakodate.



And a slightly hazy view to finish with......



Not much exciting going on in my life at the moment. I watched 'A Mighty Wind' and thought it was pretty funny. I can't get some of the songs out of my head.

I watched the opening 10 minutes of Switzerland v the Czech Republic but couldn't muster any enthusiasm for it and went to bed (the half dozen or so games even a jealous bitter little Ingerlunder like me would watch are all on at 4am), looked at our finances again and thought oh sh*t another tight summer ahead, read an interesting book on the genetic make-up of us Brits (the basic premise of which was we're mostly descended from stone age hunters from Iberia with a stong dash of central European neolithic farmers. Celts, Anglos-Saxons and Vikings merely added a bit of seasoning. And, according to Mr Oppenheimer the indigenous population may have been speaking some form of Germanic language before the 'English' barbarians arrived anyway. Anyway.....).

So that was 2007

So 2007 has come to an end. Not a terribly eventful year in my life. I.........errrrr.......let me think........didn't really do much at all.

We bought a tent and had a couple of camping trips (and next summer we'll do a lot more hopefully). And oh yeah I bought a new camera. We also bought a pet Clownfish and a small saltwater tank which now seems to have lots of creepy things living under the rocks and coral.

Here are my 10 favourite photos from the year.





I started off the year digiscoping. A Nikon 4200 Coolpix attached to a 65mm Pentax Scope with a 12mm eyepiece. Too slow for most stuff but not so bad for birds that stay in the same place for a while. Like this Stellers Sea Eagle at Yakumo. I'm quite proud of this picture, hopefully next week I can get some more. This is undoubtedly the best bird of the region. I saw my first one last century. New Years Eve 1999 to be exact, from the bus on the way to Sapporo before a marathon drinking session (for those that know and are impressed by such things I had THREE nomihodais that night).



This Peregrine Falcon was at Cape Kiritappu in east Hokkaido in late May. The nicest new place I visted in 2007. This was with my new camera, the Canon EOS 400D with a crappy Sigma 70-300 DG lens. I'd had the camera a couple of monmths and had taken a few ok shots and by May I realised I couldn't really use it above 250mm or with an aperture bigger than F8. Good light helps too. This trip to East Hokkaido was cut short when my wife tripped up over the tent and broke her ankle..........she can laugh about it now at least.



My digiscoping gear staged a comeback in June with the Ruddy Kingfishers at Onuma. They were very co-operative and sat still for 5 or so minutes within 20 metres, ideal for my set-up. In August we went back to photograph the young leaving the nest but the murky light in the overgrown forest was too much for my ancient compact digicam. I upgraded to a Finepix F31FD, which I haven't really used for digiscoping yet. Hopefully they'll be back next summmer.



There was an influx of Red Necked Stint at the end of August, they were everywhere with a flock of 30 or so at Kamiso. This was my fave shot. My wife took a better one I'm sorry to say which I'm too proud to post. This was with the Sigma cheapie but luckily the Stints were fairly tame and I could get within 5 or 6 metres.



Black Crowned Night Herons and Nuthatches were the most photographed species of the year. Lots of Night Herons on the local river in autumn. Annoyingly there was always a branch or reed in the way when they were just sitting meekly minding their own business but I was pleased with this flight shot. Even with the slow AF of the Sigma.............though the high shutter speed helped of course. This (late October) was the time I stared shooting exclusively in RAW.



It took me ages to get a decent Harlequin Duck picture. This male near Menagawa in early November was my first 'keeper' of this species. I had to clamber over slippery rocks but the one winged moulting bird just stayed on its' tetrapod ignoring me.



In late November the first snow came (and it was much much colder than now for some reason). I also ditched my Sigma and got a Canon 70-300 IS lens. Much better than the Sigma, the IS is a godsend and the optics are much sharper right up to 300mm. This Hawfinch was also very photogenic.





Life is either feast or famine. A few days after getting the new lens I met Franck, a French expat living 3 hours drive from Hakodate. Astonishingly he lent me the Canon 100-400 IS lens until next March (he uses the serious stuff, a 500mm F4 monster of a lens). This Varied Tit and Nuthatch were at the usual place in Onuma in late November. Perfect light helped with these shots................it's a great lens.



This Kingfisher was on the river near my flat in early December. Very co-operative, this was probably the best shot. I usually use the 70-300 lens as my walkabout lens but on this day I had the 100-400. The Kingfisher stayed for about 10 days and then bu**ered off somewhere else.

So what else happened in 2007? A shi**y year for sport. England flopped badly again in the footie and cricket. I'm not really a Rugby fan and can't take solace in that (and anyway they lost the final). Liverpool? Still a great cup side but after watching Arsenal demolish Everton the other night (and the Man City draw last night) we aren't going to catch them or Man U this season in the league that's for sure. Regular readers to this blog (all 10 or 11 of you) may recall my deep depression after the England v Croatia game. The pain decreases but the pessimism about the immediate future of English football remains (both club and international). It has sold its' soul. Still, only a game eh?

2008...........Capello will be interesting and should drag England back to their rightful place as mediocre underacheivers who can't take penalties under pressure in knockout games (as opposed to outright failures who don't even reach knock-outs at the moment). Rafa should get rid of Kewell and Kuyt and buy another striker and central defender and hope Man U/Arsenal both somehow implode in the New Year. Flintoff will hopefully be back next summer and have a couple of series to rebuild his form before heroically reclaiming the Ashes in 2009.

Birding? I didn't keep a year list this year. I did see a few new birds though. Daurian Jackdaw, Little Cuckoo, Broad Billed Sandpiper, Mugamaki Flycatcher, Crested (or is it Pied?) Kingfisher were my only lifers but I did add quite a few to my Japanese/Hokkaido/Hakodate lists., for example Long Tailed Duck and several common waders made it to my Japanese list, Japanese Accentor and Russet Sparrow to my local list.

I actually found that I'm as interested in taking pictures of common birds as I am in seeing new ones these days. I don't have the concebntration and fanatical attention to detail to make me a really decent birder (female or immature Buntings, phylloscopus warblers when they're not singing and just flitting around in the bushes, briefly glimpsed raptors, distant offshore Shearwaters.....all beyond me ID-wise). I'd never have made a twitcher either. Plus I don't drive and am completely out of the loop on rarity news anyway. I missed a nearby Siberian Crane, I heard about it a week later in the local paper.

Targets for next year? A few common birds are still missing from the list of birds I'd expect to see around here. Siberian Thrush is one. Several Species of Owl. Jungle Nightjar. Various seabirds and still a few common waders have eluded me in Japan. Photo-wise I'd like to get the local Waxwings. 4 out of the last 5 winters there have been loads of them in Hakodate, arriving in the 3rd week of January. Some decent Eagle shots would be nice too before I have to give Franck his lens back......that'll be a bit of a wrench!

I'm visiting England in late March and am really looking forward to it. I haven't been back since Xmas 2004. It's been too long. I hope to show my wife the city where I went to uni, Newcastle. I haven't been back since the year after I graduated (1991). We're also planning a big round Hokkaido trip in mid June (when England won't be playing in Euro 2008). If you're reading this and thinking about burgling the house, don't bother. i have nothing worth nicking. The only valuable things (my camera gear and my wife's laptop) won't even be there. And we've trained our Clownfish ('Hank') to viciously attack intruders and to show absolutely no mercy. You've been warned. I'll also have accumulated enough airmiles for me and the wife to actually fly somewhere decent.................Delta you'd better not go bust next year.

I'll be 40 next autumn. 40, with no savings to speak of, no real career, no investments, no house. Mid-life crisis here we come! Or maybe I'll reinvent myself next year. I'll, er, think about that next week.

I actually met 3 people through this blog. The aforementioned Franck, a group of British and American birders on a north Pacific cruise in May and a former resident of Hakodate with her English partner in September. All nice people, the internet isn't so bad after all. Mind you I did get some abusive weirdo spitting bile after I made some tongue in cheek comments about people on remote Scottish islands...........oddball.

If you look on some of the blog links on the right you can see several Japanese blogs (Brabirds, Kochan, Totori Ring, Greenfinch) that generally have outstanding professional level photos. Carmo Police, an entertaining read, written by an Irish expat in Osaka (who regularly leaves comments here-thanks!) has similarly excellent photos. I have something to aim for next year. Mo San and Sato San are 2 Hakodate based birders who I often see out and about and their blogs are also well worth checking. Sato San's has excellent photos from around Hokkaido (I think he's some kind of professional naturalist type) and Mo San's is apparently very funny, if you read Japanese that is. The Hiroshima blog is written by a very knowledgable expat English birder though it hasn't been updated for ages. Other blogs in Sri Lanka, Iceland and Thailand are all very interesting to read too...........

I have software to check which country vistors to this blog come from. Over 80% of hits are in Japan, most of the rest are in the UK/US and lots of random visits from around the world and I appear to have one loyal reader in Belgium. So whoever you are in Belgium thanks for visiting..............

So Happy New Year to you all. I'll be getting drunk at the in-laws tonight, it's snowing outside...........I can't be arsed going out today.

Ruddy Kingfishers leave the nest

One of 3 Ruddy Kingfishers to leave the nesthole for the first time this afternoon at Onuma. And they had an audience.



I don't know what all that gear is worth. A lot I guess. My own set-up looked feeble compared to it anyway. We arrived about 11am and I couldn't get a decent spot to stand........there must have been 25 or more photographers there. I had to stand on the other side of the road. Not a vintage day for pictures despite firing off several hundred. Alas my ancient compact digicam doesn't focus quickly enough or shoot enough frames per second for decent pics. These were at the nest.






My wife had slightly better luck using the DSLR with these 2 pics.






Oh for one of those expensive SLR lenses. Or a better more modern faster digicam. The best pics of the day where of one of the youngsters just before they left the nest. A frustrating day.






This bird hung around near the nest whereas its sibling hung around on a branch in the distance.






They were both fed several times by adults but things happened too quickly for my antique gear. Red blurs were all I could get. This was the best I could muster.






If anyone reading this is very rich and wants to make someone really really happy I want one of these.



Well at least a new compact digicam from Santa won't break the bank. I'll put it on the list.