2018 late Summer trip #1

We just got back from a 3 night camping trip. The weather was awful: strong winds coming in off the sea, heavy rain...................

We stayed 3 nights in Oshamanbe and our focus was on waders. We managed to see quite a lot over the 4 days despite the weather.

End of the holidays

Just as my cold disappears, the weather improves and my toothache is a distant memory..............the holidays end.

Another batch of common waders...........

There were quite a few waders on the beach near Yakumo on Monday..................

Some more common waders..........

Sunday and Monday were dark overcast days, not good for photography but there were quite a few waders around...........

A different day, a different Stilt

In between a couple of spells with the Crossbills at Kamiiso 2 days ago I checked the beaches for waders.

There was yet another Black Winged Stilt, this one was actually in the harbour just where the fishermen bring their boats up..................

It was very nervous.

There were some cats eyeing it hungrily so I didn't mind making it skittish..............I may have saved its life as it eventually flew off in the direction of the river.

I could get some more natural looking Stilt shots than the tame one in Goryokaku Park (that one seems to have left now).

As I said before there must have been a big influx of this species into south Hokkaido this year, this is the 5th individual I found this spring. Forgive the deluge, I probably won't see another one for 3 or 4 years.............

There were a few other waders around including 2 Ruddy Turnstone, one of rhich was coming into summer plumage.

The commonest spring wader is always Grey Tailed tattler and there were 7 or 8 of them around.............

One of them was tagged................I suppose I should report this somewhere. A green tag with 'ABD'? I wonder where that could be?

***EDITED TO ADD: according to this link it was banded in Queensland Australia. Ironically I saw my first ever Grey Tailed Tattler in Cooktown QLD in November 1994......maybe this is one of its descendants.......

Still not sure what "ABD" means though.......

I saw a colour tagged Red Necked Stint 2 or 3 years ago but was disappointed to discover it had been tagged somewhere else in Hokkaido!

I saw 2 Red Neked Stint in summer plumage at the end of the day but the light was fading and I had to catch the train home..........................

Most of the gulls/ducks have left but there were still Black Headed and Common Gulls around, all in summer plumage. Here's the latter.............

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A grey Sunday

The grey skies returned today, we had a brief foray out to Kamiiso. I wanted to check for waders, all I could find was a group of 4 Ruddy Turnstone.

A pair of Osprey were fishing over the harbour, if the sky had been blue and the sun had been shining I could have gotten some nice shots, alas the sky was battleship grey.

One of them got a fish, I missed the dive as it happened on the other side of the seawall, I did see it fly past with its catch though.

Not much else around, a few Scaup on the sea, a few Pochard and Tufted Duck in the harbour. We went a little inland, a lone Crossbill flew over, a Japanese Thrush was singing a top a tall tree, a few Hawfinch here and there and a flock of Japanese White-eye were feeding in the cherry blossoms. Again, blue sky and good light would have been nice.

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Moving swiftly on.................

A Pacific Swift up near Oshamanbe this afternoon. There were lots of swifts and hirundines flying south and I tried photographing swifts semi-seriously for the first time.

It was hard.

Some heavy cropping going on here.

In amongst the Pacific Swifts were smaller numbers of White Throated Needletails.

We were at Oshamanbe to check out the waders.

The bird on the left is a Red Knot, the one on the right is the very common Grey Tailed Tattler. Red Knot is a fairly scarce species in Japan and this is a new addition to my Japanese list.

There were other wader species around too; Mongolian Plover, Whimbrel, Sanderling, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper and Ruddy Turnstone. Here's a photo of the latter.

And of course the inevitable Red Necked Stints, they were everywhere in small skittish flocks.

This individual appeared to be colour ringed.

Other species today included the first Glaucous Winged Gull of 'winter', Great Egret, Japanese Green Pigeon, Night Heron, Sand Martin, Eastern Marsh Harrier and this young Peregrine.

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Still hot, when will it end?

No footy on tonight. How boring................

More Waders #3

A Greenshank on the beach at Kamiiso this morning. It was uncomfortably hot again today, I got heat rash and sunburn and gave up around midday..............it's now late evening and there is a spectacular thunderstorm going on outside.

The Greenshank was the most interesting species, I don't see them so often in Hakodate (they're common elsewhere near here, especially Yakumo).

I was mostly shooting into the sun so not a vintage day for pictures.

There was a group of 3 Ruddy Turnstones pecking around some weird green thing on the beach.

The 5 Terek Sandpiper were still around and still very shy, the Red Necked Stint flock fell from 21 yesterday to only 11 today. Lots of Night Herons and also the inevitable Ospreys........

So that should be about that for August, I can't recall a hotter month in the 10 summers I've been in Hokkaido. Although the storm has cooled things down a bit the forecast still says around 30 degrees tomorrow...................roll on autumn.

Still, this hot as hell weather means I feel less guilty cracking open a cold beer in the evening. In fact I think I'll go the fridge right now.

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