Not a very good or interesting photo but it does show a Vega Gull at Kamiiso today, a winter visitor.
A couple of days ago there were loads of yukimushi around. These are small white midges that appear 2 or 3 weeks before the first snow............
Also around at Kamiiso were 3 Great Egret, a lone Osprey flying south and several species of common duck. The first Daurian Redstart, a male, appeared on the river near my apartment a few days ago: another winter visitor. Also around were Brown Dipper, Bull-headed Shrike, a briefly glimpsed Siberian Rubythroat and several Black-crowned Night Heron. A juvenile Moorhen in Goryokaku Park 3 days ago was only the 3rd I've seen in Hakodate..............
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.
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.
An Ancient Murrelet in Hakodate Bay this Tuesday morning. I walked down to see if the Brent Geese were still there (they were) and was surprised to see this alcid so close to the touristy area. Not really close (the pic is a fairly heavy crop) but much closer than usual. A nice find, only the second one I've seen in Hakodate. I've seen several others in various locales, late winter/early spring often sees auks visit the harbours and bays but it's usually Rhinoceros Auklets.
There was still some snow and ice around but it was sunny and windy, I'm sure that's the end of winter. A bit of a strange one, this one of 2009/10. More Hoopoes than Crossbill/Waxwings (one versus zero). No Asian Rosy Finch. No influxes of any winter passerines at all actually, not even Brambling or Bullfinch. Not a single Siskin or Redpoll and hardly any Buntings either. Where did they all go?
It was a good winter for Brent Geese though and today there was a flock of 35 in Irifune Port. They were pretty restless, I'm sure they'll be off in a day or two. They kept flying off and coming back. Nice to get some Brent BIF shots for a change.
Whilst on the ground they were either strutting around squabbling or resting.
I said last week it was the last time to see them this winter but I was wrong. I'm glad I could get back one more time.
Here's a video of them preening and getting ready to depart. It was windy so the sound was brutal: I replaced it with sound effects.
I tried some Gull sound effects but it didn't sound like the local Gulls at all. See, I have some standards.
Lots of Red Breasted Merganser about, a few Goldeneye and Pintail plus the Harlequin Ducks of course (none of those species came close enough for a photo though). I tried to find the Hoopoe again but couldn't. Apparently there were a few in south Hokkaido the last week or so.
The Coot was still on the river and the usual small birds were still present. Like this Daurian Redstart.
Another heavy crop, it wasn't as tame as it was a few weeks ago........
And this Dusky Thrush was from today.
Today was a bit duller weather-wise. I noticed this duck yesterday but didn't give it a second glance, I assumed it was just a female Mallard. I took a closer look this morning though. It is, I think, a female Gadwall. This isn't so common round here, I only see one or two a year.
There were quite a few Gulls on the river including this individual.
Note the leg colour (yellow). This is one of those 'taimyrensis' type Gulls. Many years ago there were 2 species of Gull. Herring Gulls and Lesser Black Backed Gulls. They were closely related and had lots of different subspecies. Now they have been split into god knows how many different full species and this is an intergrade between 2 of those. Vega Gull and Heuglins Gull to be precise.
It's darker than a regular Vega Gull, such as this one also on the river today.
You can see our bird is clearly lighter than the resident Slaty Backed Gulls (which aren't in a complex that has been split.................yet). the Slaty Backed is the one in the foreground.
So what is it? A Heuglins Gull? A Taimiyr Gull? Soon to ID a Gull you'll need to get a blood sample and sequence its DNA.
Normally I wouldn't care about this scientific waffle but this may be important to me soon. My Hakodate local list is on 195 and I'm eyeing the 200. Stuff like this Gull (and the dodgy Crossbill from last year that I reposted recently) will test my ticking integrity in 3 or 4 species time....
I almost got a nice Long Tailed Rosefinch picture today. A male near my apartment.
F***ing twigs and branches.
I got up to watch Bayern v Man U very early this morning. Whilst I smirked a little at the result I'm now thinking oh god Rooney is injured before a World Cup again. I hope it isn't too serious. Actually it doesn't bear thinking about. It would be a crying shame if the only mark he ever made in a World Cup was on Carvalho's groin. It might also mean England's World Cup hopes rely on someone like Carlton Cole or Darren Bent. Oh dear.
Still, let's be positive. It may only be something like 4-6 weeks out which would mean Man U's season may implode (which would be nice) and he'd be fresh and raring to go in South Africa (which would be even better).
So this weekend it'll be 3 whole weeks without a car, hopefully we'll get our hands on a nice used one next month. God I hope so.......
I noticed the first fuki shoots near my flat, a sure sigh spring has sprung.
By the way I've changed my blog name from 'S.C.E' to 'Stu'. The original stood for 'Stella C Eagle' (oh how witty) but I got tired of that so I'll just use my real name. I've changed the photo too, it's only a few months old. But by god I look cool don't I?
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