Small birds on a rainy day

Siskin and Coal Tit from yesterday................

First quarter gone...........

Not a great picture but some kind of Marten we saw today........................

Siskins

There was a large flock of Siskin in Onuma yesterday......................

An early bath

We were up early and in one of the local parks this morning to check for spring migrants................

Siskins and Redpolls......................

Some birds at last..........

An Asian Rosy Finch on Mt Hakodate this afternoon. It was in a flock of 6 and there were several other individuals about.

There were quite a few migrants on the top of the mountain. Rustic Bunting, Japanese Bush Warbler, Siberian Meadow Bunting, Bullheaded Shrike, Red Flanked Bluetail and Oriental Turtle Dove were all arrivals from the south and a female Daurian Redstart was just passing through. Resident stuff included Nuthatch, Varied Tit, Great Spotted and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker. The usual unidentified stuff was skulking around in the bushes and offshore were numerous Red Necked Grebe with many coming into summer plumage.

A flock of 20 Siskin were also on their way north.

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

More birds in the blossoms...........

A male Red Cheeked Starling in the cherry blossoms this morning..............

A beautiful spring morning in Hakodate, lots of activity in the cherry blossoms.

These Tree Sparrows certainly weren't shy. There were lots of Russet Sparrows around too and a flock of 10 or so Siskin...........

And the inevitable Japanese White-eye. It was a little windy in the afternoon, it was difficult to track them up in the swaying branches..........

So Man Utd will get #19 then, no exciting end to the season after all (well not at the top anyway).

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

One week on..............

A Great Egret on the river near my apartment this morning.

It's one week since the earthquake. The unease regarding the Fukushima Power Plant, the grief and sadness after all those people died and the memories of those shocking scenes as the waves hit is shredding everyone's nerves.

Walking round the neighbourhood checking the birds takes my mind of such things. Slightly.

There have been 2 Great Egrets on the river for a while now. Normally they are very skittish and fly off as soon as they see me but today one of them ignored me and I could watch it fishing..........

It was only catching tiddlers............

It seemed to be shivering a lot. It must have been very hungry to have been bothering with such tiny fish...........

I've been hoping the Crossbills would be around but no sign of them anywhere. There are small flocks of Brambling, Hawfinch and Siskin................

And some Long Tailed Rosefinch...........a bird I can never get a decent shot of.

Also around are Little Grebe, Red Breasted Merganser, Goldeneye, Scaup, Coal Tit, Dusky Thrush and Daurian Redstart.

Let's hope the weekend brings some better news. The Power Plant under control and warmth, medicine and hot food for the survivors would be a good start.

Shaken

A Black Necked Grebe in Hakodate today. The EXIF data shows it was taken at around 11.30am, about 5 hours later this area was flooded as a result of the tsunami.

I was home at 2.46pm when the quake hit, it was pretty f**king scary. It lasted 3 or 4 minutes, the building was swaying, things were flying off shelves and water was sloshing out of the fish tank. I switched on the TV and watched the events unfold, wow what shocking images. 

There were several large aftershocks but it looks like Hakodate got off pretty lightly, it is a few hundred KM north of the epicenter and I live far enough from the coast not to panic.

The Back Necked Grebe seemed to have some kind of beak deformity. I've actually been looking for both Grebes and Crossbills this last week, this bird seems to tick both boxes.

There are at least 2 Great Egrets on the local river, they sometimes perch on the rooftops.

The Siskins are still around.

Today I finished off on the beach, a 'Tamiyr' type Gull was there.......note the yellwish legs.

This one had dark eyes, I thought it may have been a Thayers Gull but it isn't. It's just a Vega Gull I think, it had dark wingtips when it flew off.......

I had a couple of semi funny trivial flippant little incidents that happened this week I was going to write about but after the events today in Japan I don't really feel like it.

Ons of the people I sometimes go up to Yakumo with actually lives and works down near Sendai, I hope he's OK.

A quiet week in February

A Siskin near my apartment a couple of days ago.

It's been a bit of a quiet week, very mild and sunny for most of the time. The snow has turned to slush finally. Not so many birds around though, I was hoping to find some Crossbills but nothing doing there yet.

The small Siskin flock contained one Redpoll.

There have been several finch species around this week. A flock of Brambling in Goryokaku park, Hawfinch, Oriental Greenfinch and Long Tailed Rosefinch too. But Siskins were the most interesting.....

Not much else to report. Grey Headed and Great Spotted Woodpecker in Goryokaku Park, Sparrowhawk, Wren, Dusky Thrush, Coal and Great Tit.........

This Oriental Turtle Dove near my apartment is a bird I normally don't see in winter, I've seen 1 or 2 on several occasions this year.

5 species of duck on the river including a female Red Breasted Merganser and the Great Egret is still around...........

Only another 4 weeks of construction noise to endure, today they were digging up some of the new road they'd laid last week. Sometimes I think they may as well just bang big drums whilst burning ¥10000 bills: it'd achieve the same results. Lots of noise, lots of money wasted and nothing changes at the end of it.

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

Lots more winter arrivals

Some Whooper Swans a few days ago on the outskirts of Hakodate. Lots of stuff arriving for the winter now. Around town in the last week the first Scaup, Goldeneye, Wren and Dusky Thrush have all arrived. And so has this individual.



The same Thayers Gull that has been on the local river the last 4 winters. Other Gull species have been arriving too, including this Glaucous Winged Gull on the beach at Kamiso this morning.



11 species of duck at Kamiso now as well as 3 Great Egret a few days ago too. We also went to Onuma twice in the last week and predictably took a lot of pictures of the tame regulars.





I could lie and tell you I didn't tempt them near my camera with sunflower seeds, but I'm too honest for such deceit.







Anyway I couldn't really photoshop those sunflower seeds away.........

A fox was hanging around waiting for some handouts too. Or eyeing the tiny birds that it would never be able to catch........







I was using the lens wide open which meant that although parts of the birds were often out of focus at least the background (bokeh) was nice. Very autumnal.







There were 5 species of Tit at Onuma including the above Varied Tits as well as Great, Coal, Long Tailed and Marsh Tits.



There were a few swans, grebes, ducks and egrets about too and lots and lots of Siskin though of course these weren't so tame.



Lots of small birds in Hakodate last week. Near my place I got Red Flanked Bluetail, Yellow Throated Bunting and lots of Rustic Bunting. This (and the Bluetail too) are one of my bogey species photo-wise. The best I could manage was this.



Here a few seasonal shots to round off.







Bird of the day was this species.





2 Daurian Jackdaw mixed in with the resident Large Billed and Carrion Crow at Onuma. There were also several Rook. Both species are pretty scarce autumn/winter visitors to Hokkaido and someone told us they weer around and we just manged to find them before sunset.

My Calendar finally arrived. You can buy it via the link if you want. A touch pricey for a calendar I agree but I have to say it looks OK. I don't make much profit, if you buy one the net profit will buy me 2 cans of beer. My book should be available soon too and I'll shamelessly plug that when it comes you can rest assured.

Just started watching 'How to lose friends and alienate people' which is pretty funny so far at least.

My other blog is still being experimented on. It'll be updated more often than this one, whether it'll replace this one is yet to be decided...........er I'll think about that later.