Some summer pondlife

It was very dark in Onuma on Sunday....................

Another rainy week in Hokkaido

It was pi**ing down with rain all day today, the weather has been pretty poor again all week. We went out for a drive this afternoon and the Stonechats were still there and I could take a few snaps through the open car window at least.......





I discovered my teleconverter doesn't work so well in poor light, there was a Night Heron walking across the padis that I photographed but the results were very soft and the AF couldn't lock onto the bird and and IS seemed a bit jumpy too.........

Nothing much about really. Here's a very wet Swallow.



Last week the first Spot Billed Ducklings appeared on the river near my flat......



The mortality rate of these ducklings is usually very high. Cats, Rats, Crows all take them I suppose and they seem especially vulnerable when the river swells after heavy rains...........like today.

And there are about 8 or 9 singing Oriental Reed Warblers on the same river. Difficult to get a good shot of, they are very shy despite being a big noisy species......



So the footy season ends with a bit of a whimper. The FA Cup flashed by last night (I was pretty drunk), the Champions League was surprisingly one sided and the end of the Premier League wasn't exactly dramatic either.......lets just hope England can get through next week without any cock-ups.

I wish I could think of something interesting to write but I can't.

At the end of May we usually go away for a 4 or 5 night trip to east or north Hokkaido but because of my wife's new job that isn't possible this year. You can see some bird photos from those trips here.

The big news from the UK seems to be a frumpy middle aged Scottish woman not winning some talent show. I get homesick every now and then but on the other hand I don't have to watch crap like that (or have to talk about it or be forced to listen to others talking about it at work). Now that the footy season is over and my SKY footy package switched off until August my TV won't even be switched on for the next 10 weeks (though I'll watch some downloaded stuff on my computer of course, still got most of Season 4 of Blakes 7 to watch yet..............).

A quiet end to a quiet month.......

A very young Night Heron (judging by the fluff on top of its' head) on the river this afternoon. I haven't done anything of note since my last post, indeed I've barely left the neighbourhood. Not much in the way of birds around of course, July being July. Grey Wagtails are the most interesting (after the Night Herons of course).

I'm struggling for pictures. As you can see from the following selection.







A baby Spot Billed Duck, a turtle of some description and a Bullheaded Shrike rescued in photoshop.

There was a huge storm and rather a big earthquake last week. Both at night, both woke me up. I also watched the movie 'doomsday' which was laughably bad. I mean it was just stupid. After all those decent/semi-decent post-apocalyptic thrillers like 'Children of men' and '28 days later' the director/writer obviously thought he was onto a winner. Throw in some pop culture references, some 80's stuff (Mad Max and the soundtrack), cannibals, a cute lead actress, Bob Hoskins and wotisname Mcdowell and that posh guy from Star Trek Deep Space 9........it had to be a goer right? Nope. What a load of crap. I have 'The Ruins' up next.



A couple of posts ago I sneered at the stupidity of putting up anti-drug posters in a land where hardly anyone uses drugs. Now we have this anti-gun poster. I don't have the figures handy but I'd bet Japan has the lowest gun crime rates in the developed world. Perhaps the poster is suggesting we shouldn't shoot robots.

My wife got the Canon 450D today. It's nicer than mine (the 400D, the previous model) and no, she won't let me use it. I did however persuade her to add a nifty fifty (a cheap 50m F1.8 lens) to the shopping cart (it was only about $80) which I'll use to take some shots of the big festival in Hakodate this weekend. It's at night so I'll need a fast lens........




Roll on August and the arrival of the waders.........

Pointless early rise

So we got up at dawn today and were atop Mt Hakodate at 4.30am. The weather was cool, overcast and a bit foggy and rapidly getting worse. Perfect for a fall of migrants? Nope. Almost no birds at all. A few Siberian Blue and Japanese Robins singing somewhere down in the mist, a lone Sparrowhawk flying over, the odd Japanese Thrush here and there, the inevitable Black Faced Buntings and Bush Warblers and that was about it.

With my wife (justifiably) complaining bitterly about the pointlessness of it all we headed down and the above Red Fox was right at the foot of the mountain. Actually at one point there was a Mexican standoff between me, the Fox and a local cat. My wife said it reminded her of the final scene in The Good, the Bad, the Ugly but she tactfully declined to say which one I was.

Narcissus and Blue and White Flycatchers were in the woods at the bottom too but it was too dark for any pictures. There were 2 Grey Tailed Tattlers at the fishing harbour nearby but the light was awful as you can see.





So we headed out to Onuma where the forest was again full of birds. Absolutely loads of these.



In the small area of forest I checked there must have been half a dozen males buzzing around although the poor light meant the photos were poor compared to last time. I also saw (from a distance) Black and Grey Headed Woodpeckers at nestholes, lots of Siskin, a few Long Tailed Rosefinch, Eastern Crowned Warbler, Brown and Japanese Thrush. Here's a crappy record shot of the latter.



Another Fox on the roadside provided the best photos of the day.





It's pouring down with rain outside now but the previous 2 days saw nice bright sunny weather, here are some Red Cheeked Starling pics from Monday..........these are slowly improving.





Nothing much else about near my flat..........here a couple of random shots.





So the end of the Premier League was a bit of an anticlimax after all. I'll halfheartedly watch a bit of Euro 2008 next month I suppose. Actually I haven't even checked if it's on regular Japanese TV or not. It's on Sky but I can't be bothered paying for it. Last time some of the games were on terrestrial TV but most weren't........and anyway the games will be on in the middle of the night and without England's involvement I won't muster the energy to get up and watch stuff at 4am. I might watch some of the big games on sopcast if they're on at a reasonable time.

England's bi-annual flop at a major tournament will be something we miss in 2008. The last time they didn't qualify was in 1994 and that was odd watching the World Cup with no England. It spoiled my summer somewhat but at least my life was full of other distractions then (I was getting ready to quit my job in Hackney and travel around Australia and Asia and the summer of '94 consisted of endless drinking and pot smoking, moving out of my flat and crashing at various friends' pads around London) but I lead a dull life these days I'm afraid.

Perhaps I'll use the free time to finally start to learn photoshop properly.

Asian Rosy Finches

Beautiful springlike weather this morning in Hakodate. I popped out to the local park near my flat to see if the Crossbills were still there. No Crossbills but lots of Redpoll, Hawfinch and these Rosy Finch. About 10 of them. I've never seen then so close to home and unlike the other Rosy Finches in the countryside these urbane ones didn't mind being photographed.





There have been lots of this species this winter. Kind of a large chunky linnet on steroids type bird.





I probably won't be able to photograph them again for another 3 or 4 years so forgive the deluge.



Here are a few of the other birds from today. Unlike the above photos all (except the Kite) were taken with the smaller 70-300 lens. It's a cross section of the commoner species around............Dusky Thrush, Hawfinch, Daurian Redstart, Spot Billed Duck and Black Kite.








I watched 'Beowulf' last night. The first ever English novel. Even though it's about Scandinavians. Ray Winstone was the eponymous hero and spoke in a kind of cockney accent trying to be posh type voice. I kept expecting him to kill Grendel with a pool ball stuffed in a sock (actually the way he killed him was only slightly less subtle). At least Winstone's voice sounded more or less normal. Why do American movie makers make historical movies and tell the actors to use cod Ye olde Englishe/Oirish accents? All those rolled 'rrrrrrrs' got on my nerves. Kind of spoiled it a bit. Though of course the movie was pretty preposterous anyway. At least we get to see Angelina Jolies tits. Except we don't as it's actually animated. Plus she has some kind of tentacle thing going on.

I have 'Into the Wild', 'AVP 2' and 'Sweeney Todd' to keep me occupied over the next few days.

Our fridge is on its' last legs so we bought a new one. I have to wait at home on my day off for them to deliver it. The old fridge is humming away in the kitchen like a F1 car revving up. God knows what we'll discover behind it when the delivery oyajis take the old one away tomorrow. Maybe the spare carkeys (which I mislaid recently)?

I'm planning to get up at 4.45am to watch Liverpool v Inter Milan. I'm stupid like that.