An early winter Friday afternoon........

There were 2 Great Egrets on the river today................

Autumn continues..............

We are in the middle of a beautiful spell of autumn weather..................

A quiet Thursday............

The weather has been really nice this week.....................

Playing the percentages..........

The snow is so deep that we gave up going to Onuma and headed east yet again where we know that a) the weather and roads are mysteriously much better and b) there are a handful eagles more or less guaranteed..........

A quiet Sunday

A Slaty-backed Gull trying to swallow a big shell......................

Another Sunday with the eagles #1

The weather was still very mild on Sunday so I had another chance with the eagles at Yakumo...............

A quiet Monday

A very low-key Monday....................

A grey Monday morning..............

A Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker in Hakodate this morning...............

And some squabbling gulls in Yakumo this afternoon.............

Autumn 2015 begins............

The season and the birds are both changing..............

Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM

A friend very kindly lent me his new 100-400 MK2 this morning....................

Common birds in town

Spring

A pair of Slaty Backed Gulls in the harbour at Kamiiso this afternoon. They are paired up and in breeding plumage...............it must be spring.

Golden Week 2012 #1

Asian House Martins at Kikonai yesterday.

A cluster of national holidays known as Golden Week kicked off yesterday and spring well and truly arrived, it has been warm and sunny, indeed I got sunburned today and consumed not 1 but 2 ice creams...............

Yesterday morning started at Akagawa, lots of activity in the forest before the dirt bikers showed up to scare everything off. Lots of Narcissus Flycatcher and Eastern Crowned Warbler were singing, other stuff included Japanese Thrush, Whites Thrush and Long Tailed Rosefinch. In Kikonai and Shireuchi there wasn't so much around.............a lone Bewicks Swan, a couple of Great Egret, a Greenshank, several Little Ringed Plover, Lathams Snipe, Osprey and a few Brent Geese, Wigeon and Red Breasted Merganser offshore.

Lots of Asian House Martin everywhere now...........

At Kamiiso yesterday there were no waders but lots of summer plumage Black Headed Gulls...........these look very exotic here (we usually only see them in winter plumage and there are no other common hooded gulls in Japan). Shame I grew up in England where they are so common birders probably don't even look at them..............

Today I walked the long walk down the beach in Kamiiso to look for waders: all I could find was 1 very flighty Whimbrel. We headed over to Asabu, there were some good birds here but nothing posing for the camera. Pacific Swift, Wryneck, more Osprey and lots of Siberian Stonechat and Chestnut Eared Bunting were singing...........here's one of the latter, a shy bird that flies off as soon as eye contact is established even through a car window.

Back at Kamiiso I waited in vain for the Ospreys to come close and eventually gave up and concentrated on the local Black Tailed Gulls which were courting. Like the Black Headed Gull this is a beautiful bird I maybe take for granted.............the second one here is a Slaty Backed Gull, the common resident large gull.

I don't know if I'm being paranoid but I'm sure I used to take better quality photos of more interesting species than I have been doing lately.

Roy Hodgson? I'm underwhelmed to say the least but he's done well using scant playing resources with mid ranking teams..........maybe he won't be a total disaster with England then.

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Glaucous Winged Gulls and other stuff

A Glaucous Winged Gull this afternoon. Not much around today, I took a lot of gull shots.

We went up to Oshamanbe today, it looks like winter has ended. Still freezing but no fresh snow for several days.

I was hoping to see Long Tailed Ducks in the harbour at Oshamanbe. And see them we did. 5 or 6 of them but they didn't come close enough for any decent photos, this heavy crop was the best I could manage.

Aside form the usual common ducks there wasn't much around. I counted 8 or so White Tailed Eagles at various locales but none were close enough to photograph. The Stellers all appear to have left........

Do whilst I was waiting in vain for the Long Tailed Ducks to come closer I checked out the gulls. Usually there are 4 large white headed gull species present in winter. The resident Slaty Backed and the winter visitor Vega Gull are the commonest and they are joined by Glaucous and Glaucous Winged in winter.

My fave is the Glaucous but there weren't so many around today, this rather small dainty individual was the only one close enough to get a shot of.

 I always thought Glaucous Gulls (lets call them GWGs) were the biggest most agressive gull species but not in Hokkaido. I'd say the GWG is the Alpha Seagull in south Hokkaido. This is one with a Slaty Backed on the right.

I snapped a few BIFs of various GWGs.

And a few non BIFS..........

It does seem to be dominant over the Slatybacks. I hardly saw any Vega Gulls today (where are they?) and not many Glaucous either but the GWGs looked like they were in total control of the seafood offal areas in the various harbours we visited. This brute was bullying the Slatybacks for sure........

Liverpool last night? What a nightmare of frustration. We dominated the game but couldn't score in a brothel. If Van Persie played for us we'd be talking about the title instead of the Carling Cup and 6th place at best.

I just watched the Tyne/Tees derby, can I stay up and watch Man U v Spurs? Hmmmmmmm.........maybe not I think especially after that 3rd beer on top of a 5am start this morning.

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Winter fades away............

Not a vintage week for photos.

A drake Black Scoter at Sawara this afternoon (above). 

We spent Sunday visiting fishing ports (4 in all) looking for Black Necked Grebes and other harbour birds but there were none to be seen anywhere. The last 3 years have seen large numbers of the 3 marine Grebe species plus divers and murrelets in the ports but today all we could find were a few of the commoner duck species such as these Harlequin Ducks, a bird I have few good shots of, today's were nothing to write home about.

I have yet to get a decent shot of a Black Scoter, they seem to be very shy and it is difficult to nail the exposure on such a blackish bird. They have a big yellow bill that is visible with the naked eye even when they are bobbing about in the waves well offshore. These were fairly close but not that close.........

At Onuma the Mandarin Ducks have arrived, one of the earliest summer visitors. This is another attractive and very shy bird, another on the 'list' of birds I want to get a decent shot of.

This was just before sunset..............

A Stellers Sea Eagle flew over as were leaving in the car, I'm surprised to see one so late. Quite a few ducks at Onuma now as the lake slowly thaws, sharing the ice free patch with the Mandarins were Pintails, Goosander, Smew, Goldeneye and the common stuff like Mallard and Tufted Duck.

In the forest I looked in vain for Black Woodpecker (I haven't seen a single one yet this year), the tame Nuthatches were around as per usual.......

A very quiet week just gone by in Hakodate. The Siskins and Bramblings are both still around. The only photos I took were of a Vega and Slaty Backed Gull squabbling over a dead fish with a Large Billed Crow, as you can see the Vega Gull got the fish in the end........

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I watched England v Sri Lanka last night, well I watched the England innings. I thought I'd watch the end of the game (which I thought would be very tight and tense) after the England/Wales footy game. I'm glad I didn't.........losing by 10 wickets is just embarrassing.

At least they didn't f**k up in the football, mind you Wales look as weak a side as England have played in recent years. I expected a feistier show from the Welsh, they just seemed to give up after the 2nd goal. And England seemed to let them off the hook meaning a very dull last 75 minutes..........

I had to endure Chris Coleman as an 'expert' summariser. Nice enough chap I'm sure but my god, if he's an expert then I'm a world class bird photographer.