2018 Best Of #8

Some waders from spring/autumn 2018...................

Before the disaster(s)

Some more photos of the tame Whimbrel from last Sunday, which seems like an awfully long time ago now.............

A walk on the beach..........

Last Sunday saw a brief break between 2 typhoons with some clear sunny weather...............

The last arrivals...........

We stopped at Yakumo on the way and way back from our short trip..................

Another Weekend Away #1

An Eastern Curlew near Yakumo a couple of days ago..................

Some more common waders..........

Sunday and Monday were dark overcast days, not good for photography but there were quite a few waders around...........

Back through the typhoon #2

The typhoon earlier this week grounded lots of Whimbrel. Hundreds and hundreds of them...............

Back through the typhoon #1

We headed home through the typhoon...............

Waders arrive at last

Some waders on the local beaches................

Waderless

Typhoons, workload and various minor health ailments have kept me off the beaches this August more than I would have liked.................

A very busy month ends............

Wow that was a busy month (birdingwise at least)..............

And the heat continues........

A Whimbrel on the beach at Oshamanbe this afternoon.

Very hot and humid still, I'm getting all kinds of nasty little rashes and itches.

At least the wader season is well underway now. At Yakumo there were 4 Whimbrel, 3 Greenshank, 3 Terek Sandpiper, 1 Long Toed Stint, several Common Sandpiper, 1 Grey Tailed Tattler and 7 Black Tailed Godwit. A small flock of 10 or so small waders I saw very briefly were probably more Long Toed Stints. Other stuff included lots of all 3 common hirundines, 2 Great Egret, 1 Northern Hobby, 4 Osprey, various small birds passing through and a lone Kingfisher.

Up at Oshamanbe there weren't so many waders. I Red Necked Stint, 1 Eastern Curlew and this very tame Whimbrel.

On Friday I did the beach at Kamiiso but the only waders were a flock of 10 Terek Sandpiper and about a dozen or so Red Necked Stints..........nothing posed for the camera and then it started raining (a temporary respite from the heat at least).


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Fox Cubs #2

We went to Onuma to check the fox cubs and they were much more co-operative today.............

There seemed to be 3 of them..............they spent their time play fighting........

One was much bigger than the others and had first go at a huge fish the mother dumped in the undergrowth for them, too dark for a pic of that..........

They did frolic around in the open at least......

The usual birds were around, no photos though..........I also got my first mosquito bites of the season. Only 6 or so weeks ago everything was buried under snow and now the mozzies are back.

Nothing at all on the ricefields.................I was really hoping to get some freshwater waders in summer plumage this spring, I may only get one more chance later this week. There were half a dozen very skittish Whimbrel on the beach at Kamiiso, this was the only shot I could get.

Still a few ducks around: Wigeon, Gadwall and Scaup. This male Stonechat was in someone's garden near the beach.

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A short walk on the beach

I had a spare afternoon so we checked out the ricefields to see if a) they had been flooded yet and b) if there were any waders there yet. The answers were yes but only a little and no none at all. So I checked out the beach at Kamiiso. There were 2 Whimbrel and half a dozen or so Grey Tailed Tattler.

The Whimbrel were a bit jumpy but I could get closer when they were preening.

One Whimbrel had a normal bill but the other seemed slightly misshapen (it couldn't close it). You can see the comparison between the 2 birds here.

It was nice light late in the afternoon...........

The Tattlers were also pretty jumpy, this was the best shot I could muster.

In the car park next to the beach there was 1 Little Ringed Plover.

Not much else around, a couple of Ospreys flew over carrying wriggling fish. In Hakodate the last few days there hasn't been much, still lots of Asian Brown Flycatchers passing through but nothing else of interest. I spent an hour this morning watching a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers driving off the Red Cheeked Starlings which were trying to pinch their nesthole.........

So Kenny Daglish got sacked, I'm past caring. And I was consumed with apathy when the England squad was announced..................thank the lord Test Match Special is on for the first time this summer...............


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Some spring waders

Whimbrel, Marsh Sandpiper and Wood Sandpiper, 3 waders from a long long spring day............

We started off very early and drove up Hakodateyama to check for migrants. There were quite a few birds around including lots of Red Flanked Bluetails, a bird I can never get a decent photo of. It was too dark and gloomy this morning for photos anyway. Other birds in the forest included Dusky, Brown and Japanese Thrush, Siberian Blue and Japanese Robin, Black Faced and Siberian Meadow Butnings, Japanese Bush Warbler, Japanese White-eye and Long Tailed Rosefinch. We didn't stay too long here, it looked sunnier to the east so we headed over that way.

Lots of stuff on the sea: Scaup, Red Breasted Merganser, Goosander, Harlequin Duck, Brent Goose, Pintail, Wigeon etc............our first stop was at Kikonai.

There were 7 species of wader here. Grey Tailed Tattler were the commonest, here's one with a Marsh Sandpiper. Like most of today's photos, some heavy cropping going on here.

And a lone Wood Sandpiper............

The other species were Common Sandpiper, Little Ringed Plover, Whimbrel and Kentish Plover. There were 3 heron species. Grey Heron, Great Egret and Little Egret, just one of each plus a lone Whooper Swan that is always here. Did it just get bored of migrating north every summer? It looks fighting fit, is there such a thing as a lazy Swan?

Ducks here included a male Falcated Teal, a female Gadwall, Tufted Duck and Pochard. There were also a pair of Osprey but they were flying too high for any photos. Chestnut Eared Buting, Siberian Stonechat and Blue Rock Thrush were all singing, it was very springlike and even slightly warm.......

We then headed out to Matsumae, on the way I noticed 3 egrets in a field, 2 Cattle Egret and 1 Intermediate Egret. One of the Cattle Egrets was in full sumer plumage........

I think that's the first time I've seen all 4 egret species in one day in Hokkaido before. The 3 smaller ones are all fairly regular spring overshoots but Cattle and Intermediate are a little scarce.

This Rustic Bunting was in the same field..........

In Matsumae I had a couple of hours to kill whilst my wife looked around the cherry blossom park. There were a few Harlequins and Brent Geese on the sea, more Grey Tailed Tattlers and Common Sandpiper and a pair of Whimbrel........

Plus the inevitable Ospreys...........

We headed back to Hakodate and the rivermouth in Kamiiso. There were 4 Great Egret and 10 or so Night Heron which brought today's heron list to 6 species. Just before it got too dark a Black Tailed Godwit flew over, a local tick no less (#203).

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I'm exhausted.

So the Premier League season isn't over yet after all. God I hope Chelsea win on Sunday with a really controversial refereeing decision, just to see SAF's red spluttering rage.