Last Eagles of 2018............

Today was probably my last trip up to Yakumo this calendar year...........

Some Christmas Eagles

We spent Christmas Eve daytime up in Yakumo.............

Mild weather returns

After a lot of snow last week it was mild again today.............

Some Eagle BIFs

The eagles are slowly getting more approachable. Though of course they still generally fly off..........

Autumnal Eagles

The Eagles at Yakumo are still skittish and mostly distant but at least they looked nice in the autumnal light............

The end of autumn approaches..........

It was another mild autumn weekend, surely the last one before the weather turns.............

2018 Eagles arrived...............

The eagles have started arriving for the winter..................

50 almost up

Holy s**t: I turn 50 tomorrow.

2018 best of #1

Some shots from last winter.....................

North Hokkaido 2018 #3

A Long-tailed Rosefinch from a few days ago..............

A late one

It's well into spring but there was 1 White-tailed Eagle still at Yakumo this afternoon................

No snow anywhere, Skylarks singing and a colony of Grey Herons and Great Cormorants in the trees it was perching in a few weeks ago: it must be wondering what the hell is going on out there.

A bit of spring in the air..........

A hint of spring at last...............

Winter starts to fade away...............

A White-tailed Eagle north of town today. There were quite a few of them still around (although all the Stellers seem to have departed). The weather has been milder the last few days, the main roads are clear in Hakodate and we can even see a bit of pavement (sidewalk) here and there too.............

Spring can't be far away. At long last. It's been a brutal winter in Hakodate.................

Some later winter miscellany

We visited the ports north of Yakumo hoping to find some Long-tailed Ducks............

Some late February raptors............

There were quite a few White-tailed Eagles east of town today..................

On this day (February 24th)......................

February 24th 2014.

Some White-tailed Eagles at Rausu 4 years ago today. Was that really 4 years ago? Time flies............

Eagle trio

We headed east on Sunday................

Some grey visitors

Onuma was pretty quiet yesterday but the Whooper Swans briefly had some company...............

An early finish............

There weren't so many eagles at Yakumo yesterday...............

A confused grebe

We went back to one of the local ports to check the Black-necked Grebes.............