2018 late Summer trip #3

 The second day of our short trip was windy but sunny...................

That time of year again

It's wader season again..............

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

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

A few days away............

A Red Necked Stint jogging on the beach and a Sanderling gagging on something............

We went camping near Tomakomai for 3 nights.................

2104 Best of #5

 

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

A lot of beaches but not a lot of birds

Over the last couple of days I spent a lot of time walking up and down beaches all over SW Hokkaido.......................

Waders arrive................

A couple of Sanderling at Sawara this afternoon. Not much around anywhere.......a lone Wood Sandpiper hiding in the ricefields near town a couple of days ago, a lone Red Necked Stint and Grey Tailed Tattler near the Sanderlings...........

It was very hot at the start of the month which was followed by a big typhoon and now the weather is just meh. At least it's not too hot to sleep...............

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

Nice end to a slow slow week

It's been a grey grey rainy week and not much to report except the above Ringed Plover. A lousy week for photos but I got a nice bird at the end at least.......

I got an e-mail yesterday telling me there was a Ringed Plover on one of the local beaches, this is rather a rare bird in Japan and one I had yet to see here. I got up early today to try and see it and walked along the beach under the grey drizzly skies and saw nothing except the usual Red Necked Stints and Grey Tailed Tattlers.

On Thursday I has also been on the same beach, the birds that day included 2 Lesser Sandplover and a Sanderling in amongst the stints and tattlers. The Sanderling is the one below.

On Friday I had a quick walk along the river, a few Asian Brown Flycatchers flitting around in the bushes were the only migrants around. Today we headed over to Shikabe, I tried in vain to get some Japanese Green Pigeon shots but the dark grey skies defeated me. The only shot worth looking at was the flyover Peregrine.

We returned to a different part of the beach at Kamiiso and in amongst all the Red Necked Stints I noticed a Little Ringed Plover on the opposite side of the river, 5 minutes later I was on the other side comparing Little Ringed and Ringed Plovers, the 2 were together on the beach. #210 on my local list and #259 on my Japan list. Not a lifer of course as it is a common UK bird but as I said before it is a little scarce over on this side of the Eurasian landmass.

I watched England grind out victories in the footy and rugby, I watched Liverpool being wasteful and losing 3 points at Stoke..............when was the last time I enjoyed watching one of my teams?

Well, the cricket I guess..............

Hope the weather improves, the first 11 days of September have been awful.

Offensive though it was I had a genuine LOL moment whilst watching 'Shameless' a few days ago.

Someone had the name 'Bobby Sands' taped to their forehead as part of a game. "Who am I?" they said, "give us a hint".

Frank said "you're a sh*t interior decorator".

I spilled my beer I was laughing so much.

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Long Toed Stint up close

A Long Toed Stint at Kamiiso this afternoon. Thanks to Osamu for telling me about this one. The beach was packed with people (it was a beautiful sunny day) and I wouldn't have bothered checking it out had I not known about the Stint.

It was feeding in some drain that emptied out onto the beach (not sewage but whatever it was it wasn't nice) and it was very very tame indeed. The day today had started with 4 very shy Long Tailed Stints skulking in the ricefields and not wanting to be photographed at all. Why was this one so fearless?

It scampered around coming as close as 1 meter or so.

There were 3 Red Necked Stint further up the beach, on the next beach down there were more Red Neckeds and a few Common Sandpiper. Osprey, Black Headed Gull, Goosander were the other noteworthy species in Kamiiso.

Here's a jerky handheld video of the Long Toed Stint.

Earlier in the day we were at Sawara, there were over a 100 Red Necked Stints here as well as 2 or 3 Sanderling.

Also at Sawara a few Japanese Green Pigeon came down to the tetrapods...........

At Shikabe the usual Japanese Green Pigeon spot was overrun with fishermen so nothing doing there..................

Man City have just scored their 4th against Spurs, are we looking at this season's champions?

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Back in circulation

Some Sanderling up at Oshamanbe this afternoon. The wader season is underway, this was one of 6 species around today. My gout is receding (I'm still limping though) so I was back out with the camera........

It has been so hot recently, hovering around the low 30's and humid as hell. Others living elsewhere in Japan may scoff at this news but let me tell you in Hokkaido we generally don't have aircon. Except in the car...............

There were 5 Sanderling on the beach, I think they were adults. The light was a tad harsh...........

I got sunburned on the beach and soaked too as I wasn't paying attention to the surf.............

On a nearby beach there were 5 Red Necked Stint, these were still showing a lot of summer plumage...................

A single Grey Tailed Tattler was sharing the beach with the Stints........

At Yakumo there was a single Curlew (Eastern I think, the hill seems a bit short, I didn't see the rump) and a couple of what I think were Marsh Sandpiper, here are a couple of BIF record shots.

A couple of summer plumaged Grey Plover were also around.

Last week there was a Black Faced Spoonbill ( a very rare bird) at Yakumo. I looked for it for a couple of hours but to no avail. There were lots of Great Egret, Grays Grasshopper Warbler were still singing, Sand Martin were flocking ahead of migration, Black Browed Reed Warbler families were everywhere...............but no Spoonbill..............

I was kept entertained by the Ospreys, shame they didn't come close enough for a decent shot.......

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Hope this hot spell ends soon, it is rare when we can't get to sleep at night because of the heat...........

The footy season kicks off next week (the Premier League that is) but I'll be away Saturday I think, after the World Cup my appetite for football has lessened somewhat. J Sports (the TV channel that usually show it) are still negotiating the contract anyway so they may not even show the first round of matches (this happened 2 or 3 years ago)....................I'll be home for the Liverpool/Arsenal game though which I'm sure can be watched on multiple internet feeds of varying qualities. The England v Pakistan cricket feeds have been of pretty poor quality so I'm currently listening to TMS with a cold beer in my hand, one of life's little pleasures.......

  

Wader Season #3

We were back up at Oshamanbe today and there was a mixed flock of about 40 or so waders. Most of them were Red Necked Stints. There was also 1 Dunlin and about half a dozen Sanderlings. The Sanderlings are much bigger and easy to pick out.





The Dunlin and some of the Sanderlings still has the remnants of summer plumage.......







Red Necked Stints are one of my fave birds. They come very year at the same time. There's a window of 5 or so weeks when there are loads of them everywhere. Shame it was such a grey cloudy day.......





Not much else around. Lots of migrating hirundines and Pacific Swifts.

Only another 4 or 5 weeks of local construction noise (I'm saying that through gritted teeth).

My wife voted in the Japanese General Election today. Looks like Japan will be getting a new government after pretty much 54 years of one party rule. Will anything change? Some anti-noise laws wouldn't go amiss Mr Hatoyama.

Installed Snow Leopard with no major issues and am hoping the 7D will be announced next week. My trusty old Canon 400D/XTi has served me well but now its time to move up a level. I just found out today the flash is broken so I can persuade my wife I may as well get a new model...........

The Liverpool victory was exciting last night but they aren't looking like title contenders. If I was a betting man I'd put a few quid on Man City.

I may watch the 20/20 cricket later today, I've never seen one ever.