50 almost up

Holy s**t: I turn 50 tomorrow.

On this day (January 28th)......................

January 28th 2009.

A Spectacled Guillemot in one of the local ports 9 years ago today. I've only ever seen this species twice in south Hokkaido although they do breed further north and east.

On this day (July 28th)..................................

July 28th 2014.

A Spectacled Guillemot near Esashi 2 years ago today. Only the second one I'd seen in southern Hokkaido, it must have been blown inshore by strong westerlies. It looks a bit scruffy...........probably an adult beginning its moult. They look great in full summer plumage but I only see them as distant specks off the capes of east Hokkaido then....................

Spectacled Guillemot

We ended up in Esashi this afternoon......................

On this day (January 28th).....................

January 28th 2009.

This Spectacled Guillemot was a nice find in Hakodate, some of this series of photos appeared on TV and another even won me a ¥100,000 prize................

Thanks for clicking this link

Some good news for a change..........

So July has been pretty nasty. England's awful World Cup, non-stop construction noise, wet overcast weather and a flare up of gout in my big toe has left my nerves shredded.

But today I checked the letterbox and there was something from a big Japanese camera chain.  Junk mail? No! The above photo (a Spectacled Guilemot from January 2009 in one of the local harbours) has won first prize in a national photo contest. I sent it off to the amateur section and it won one of the 3 categories (nature I think but I actually can't recall which one exactly).

I had entered the photo several months ago and had totally forgotten about it. The prize money is a rather tasty ¥100,000 (a little over US$1000). It'll start my savings towards either a Canon 300 F2.8 or 500 F4 next year..................

Sometimes life throws us a few nice things. Not often I know.

Thanks for clicking this link.

Bad luck comes in threes...........it's true.

Yesterday was very clear sunny weather bang in the middle of the peak of the wader migration season. I had most of the day free and was planning to go to the beach at Kamiso.

But I couldn't go due to an attack of gout, something of a family curse (not helped by my love of beer and seafood). All I can do is hobble around my apartment with a very painful red swollen big toe cursing life in general and the construction noise specifically. I also have had a chronic sore throat the last 3 or 4 weeks and half of one of my teeth fell out last week. F**king hell! If it really comes in threes I've used up all my bad luck for a long while....

I was bored so here are some photos from earlier in the year that never made it onto this blog. They were on my 2 abortive attempts at a second blog, both of which bit the dust.............

This Spectacled Guilemot was in one of the fishing harbours in town in January. It just about managed to swallow that big fish.......







And here is its relative, an Ancient Murrelet also in January out at Menagawa..........



The influx of Crossbills in March/April provided lots of photo opps very close to my apartment........









And here are some Eagle in flight shots at Yakumo last winter where I messed up the exposure..............







And on the ground.............







I don't know why I didn't put this Crane shot on this blog, it's one of my fave ones.....



The Black Necked Grebes in Shikabe were very photogenic in early April.......in both winter and summer plumages..........





I rarely get to take shots of this species: a White Backed Woodpecker in Yakumo in January...........



And here is a Daurian Jackdaw, a scarce winter visitor. This was last winter just outside town.......



Hope there are still some waders around when I can walk properly again in a few days time..............

An unusual visitor

A Hawfinch at Onuma this morning, this one was taken through glass but I'm pretty pleased with it. Don't mention to anyone it was on a feeder though.



A Spectacled Guilemot in one of the fishing harbours in Hakodate last week. I'd perviously only seen this species in east Hokkaido (and way offshore through the scope too) but here it was extremely close. We watched it for several minutes trying to swallow some kind of flatfish.



It was so close I managed to take this crappy video, just with my compact camera (not attached to a scope or anything). On the right side you can click to watch it in 'high' quality.



I checked out video cameras in one of the local electrical stores last week. The cheap ones are affordable but the high definition ones are about ¥80,000. A bit out of my price range at the moment although a cheaper one attached to my scope may work but setting it all up is such a hassle (plus I have to carry all the extra gear). I plan to upgrade my DSLR body later this year and am kind of hoping Canon may release the 60D with HD video............



For lots more Guilemot photos please click here. Apologies if my other website sometimes takes ages to load the pages, something about the coding of iweb created sites I think (plus my general cackhandedness).

Sharing the fishing harbour were the usual Harlequin Duck and Brent Geese.



More photos of the Geese and Harequins are here.

Today (Sunday the 1st Feb) I went up to Yakumo with some friends. The eagles were showing nicely.





And here are 2 more low quality digiscoped videos of the eagles eating whatever scraps they could find.






It was bitterly cold at Yakumo and we looked in vain for the Snow Buntings which have been regularly seen there recently. We were even given directions where to find them but alas they were nowhere to be seen. At least the eagles were posing gamely.



And back at Onuma the Ural Owl has reappeared........



More pics from today are here.

The wife has been working this past week so, apart from today's trip to Yakumo and Onuma, I've been birding on foot around town. A flock of Bohemian Waxwings has been around.



I still haven't really got it together shooting this species. The web is full of great pics of Waxwings close up gorging on berries. With me they always sit up in high places and when they swarm onto a tree it's always on the other side of a busy road or they fly off as soon as I get near (they ignore other people walking by of course). Brown Eared Bulbuls also chase them off just as I get the camera ready. More Waxwing pics are here.



This was one of a group of 6 or 7 Asian Rosy Finch on the beach on Friday afternoon. They were a bit jumpy, hopefully they'll stick around a bit longer and I can get some better shots. This male Long Tailed Rosefinch was one of several around town this week too.



More finch pics are here.

So what else has been happening this week. I got a new fieldguide to the region. You can check it out here.

The author of the book (Mark Brazil) also lives in Hokkaido, I've never met him although we have exchanged one or two e-mails. The text is great and is way better than anything before for the east Asian region (in English at least) although some of the illustrations are hit and miss. I took advantage of the weak UK Pound and bought it from Amazon's UK site.

I started watching Season 6 of 'Shameless', a series which has gone downhill a wee bit to be honest. Still worth downloading and watching though.

So if Liverpool draw tonight against Chelsea (the most likely result) and Man U win their game in hand the gap will be 7 points. Oh dear. I watched the game against Wigan last Wednesday and I couldn't believe some of the decisions Benitez has been taking. There is no way in hell they can win the title this or any other season with this coach and/or squad.

The main department store in town was declared bankrupt last week. My wife and brother-in-law both work there so I hope something gets sorted out soon, apparently it's been put under administration or something,hopefully it will continue a while yet. Many of the locals are also panicking about it closing. I mean where else can bored spoilt Japanese housewives buy designer handbags and expensive perfume from?

I'm cold and tired and am going to take a bath and then relax with a beer and try not to get frustrated with the Liverpool game later on...........