Golden Week 2010 #3

A very confused male Grey Headed Woodpecker near my apartment a couple of days ago. I'm sure it thought it was behaving normally, sitting atop a grey tree calling for a mate and drumming.

The only problem was it was in downtown Hakodate.

And it was drumming on metal lamposts,. I took some jerky video (difficult handheld with a 400mm lens in a busy street).

It has gotten warmer and the cherry blossoms have finally opened, rather later than usual this year........

I didn't go far in the last few days so all my birding was on the local river. Lots of common spring arrivals like this Oriental Turtle Dove.

2 of the commonest summer visitors are Red Cheeked Starling and Bullheaded Shrike.

The Starlings are pretty wary (except when the young leave the nest in mid June when they seemingly ignore pedestrians). This is the male.

And this is the female.

The Starlings nest along the river in small colonies. The Shrikes nest there too, usually 2 or 3 pairs. These are also tricky to photograph and are as wary as the Starlings. This is the male.

I saw the first Oriental Reed Warbler of the spring today, this is another common/wary breeder along the river.

Other stuff passing through has included Pale and Japanese Thrush, Eastern Crowned and Japanese Bush Warbler, Red Flanked Bluetail and Long Tailed Rosefinch. Some of the winter birds are still hanging on: Dusky Thrush, Hawfinch and a few Teal.

I got up to watch the Spurs/City game, quite exciting stuff and I'm glad it was Spurs who finished 4th and not City.......................Ledley King for England at the World Cup? I reckon so.

Hawfinches

Not much in the way of new birds in Hakodate this week, there were however a couple of small flocks of Hawfinches eating berries which had been revealed by the melting snow..............

It was nice to see them on the ground.

Usually they're up in the trees............

They are very shy birds but a couple of individuals were slightly bolder than the rest.

Several Dusky Thrush were in the same tiny park.

Not much else in town, no sign of Crossbills or other winter finches. A very skittish Great Egret was on the river.......

And the Common Teal have started displaying with their weird whistling calls. Here's a drake on the local river..............

Winter arrives finally

Well winter finally hit and outside it's f****** freezing and there's loads of snow and ice. The Brambling was a new arrival as was the Glaucous Winged Gull but otherwise it's been a pretty low key week. A Coot, 5 Brent Geese, some Wigeon and Scaup were in the harbour with the Gull. Not much showing so here's some of the common stuff.

Like Tree Sparrows. These are pretty scarce in the UK these days (I can't even remember the last one I saw there) but they are the common urban sparrow of east Asia. I tend to ignore them but there really wasn't much to photograph this week...........

Birds and snow also go well together...........

Plumbing the depths a bit here, here's a Common Teal on the local river.

The Glaucous Winged Gull at least did something entertaining.

This sign states the obvious somewhat.

I'm watching the 1st Test in South Africa on and off, England are struggling a bit. Liverpool's 2nd half showing against Arsenal was as bad as I can remember them playing for a while. Gerard has turned into a petulant brat, Torres doesn't look fit and let's face it half the team aren't actually that good. Still they managed to hang on for a victory against Wigan the other night (can't believe I just typed that!).

A very quiet week........

Good old reliable Nuthatches. A Wryneck at Asabu and a male Black Woodpecker at Onuma were nowhere near as co-operative and the blurry out of focus pictures have already been deleted off my hard drive and memory card........

It was a gorgeous warm spring day and we headed over to Asabu. The Ospreys were already on the nest but as you can see it is a long way off.



A 100% crop a minute or so later reveals the 2 birds on top of the stack.



Asabu is a good place in summer for birds but today there really wasn't much about. The Wryneck and Ospreys were the only noteworthy species. The only singing species was the hordes of Skylark. They were everywhere.



And there were a few Red Breasted Mergansers in the nearby fishing harbours too........



It's been a quiet week in Hakodate, even though the weather has been pretty good I haven't been out so much. My business has picked up quite nicely plus my wife is working full-time so taking pics of birds is taking a bit of a back seat.

I saw the last Crossbill (a flyover male) on Tuesday but there was a flock of 5 in the local park on Monday including this tame individual......



Shame they seem to have gone. The most photographed bird of the year so far in Hakodate this year and I'm already hoping they return next winter (they've been common the last two winters but were absent for the three before yet common the three before that).

Otherwise not much at all. A singing Japanese Bush Warbler on Friday was the first of the year and the lone adult Night Heron was in the same place most of the week.



And groups of Teal have been courting on the local river, here's a male.



The first Bullheaded Shrikes appeared too and a few winter ducks were still hanging on in Kamiso this morning (Scaup mainly).

Bad result for Liverpool against Chelsea the other night and now Man U seem to have uncovered another annoying young south European. Damn.

Another busy week coming up...........

Foxes and cherry blossoms

The cherry blossoms have opened but I've been mostly stuck inside with work and a sore throat. I did manage it up Mt Hakodate on Wednesday and later made it out to Onuma and Asabu. Spring migration on Mt Hakodate is underway but the deluge hasn't quite begun. Pale Thrush, Whites Thrush, Grey Thrush, Red Flanked Bluetail and Red Cheeked Starling were the main visitors on show. There were also these 2 oddities. A deformed crow and a strange looking Coal Tit.





Is the Coal Tit a fledgling? Surely not in April? Is it covered in yellow pollen? God knows. Here are some not so hot shots of several of the commoner species at Asabu. Black Faced and Chestnut Eared Buntings plus a male Siberian Stonechat.







There seems to be some development going on near the river at Asabu that may not bode so well for the birds. Little Ringed Plover and Osprey were also around and my wife was happy enough buying some of the tasty local mushrooms (maitake and shitake). Over at Onuma we saw quite a lot of birds (including Black Woodpecker) but not many were hanging around to be photographed.........except for the Marsh Tits. So a special thank you to this Red Fox.







The Ural Owl wasn't in its' hole. I hope we didn't spook it last Sunday.

Today (Friday) I popped out and took these shots.........the 100-400 lens isn't ideal for this sort of picture but I can't be arsed changing lenses.





Only a brief foray due to the sore throat, not many birds about at all. A Red Flanked Bluetail flashed around for a few seconds but the only birds I could get on camera were these 2, including a failed takeoff shot.





I couldn't believe Riise's last gasp own goal on Tuesday night (or Wednesday morning here in Japan). It was a real roll your eyes heavenwards muttering 'oh for f**ks sake' moment. I suppose Liverpool got a fair share of luck earlier on in the CL (those 2 red cards for Inter, the penalty decisions against Arsenal) so I'm not going to complain.........but...........oh for f**ks sake.