A bit of a lull

A bit of a quiet fortnight just passed me by....................

Too hot to do much

Not a very good picture but this heavy crop is one of a flock of White Throated Needletails at Yakumo on Sunday. They were with lots of Sand Martin and will be heading south soon.

Not  much else around. Great Crested Grebe offshore, Grays Grasshopper Warblers still singing in the bushes and all the common stuff feeding their young,

It's been very hot recently, not much going on. Too hot to go outside. Hot enough to wish I had an airconditioner.

After getting up to watch the opening ceremony I tried watching a bit of the actual Olympics but all that seems to be on here is judo...................the coverage here is a bit one eyed and you'd think Japan is the only nation competing.. I would say it is the same in most countries though.

Whatever, I haven't watched the Olympics in 20 years............still I managed to crack how to watch the coverage from the UK online. Shame all the interesting stuff will be on in the middle of the night.


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Another grey August week......

2 of many Pacific Swifts near Sawara yesterday, there were huge flocks of them heading south.

In amongst them were a few White Throated Needletails.

On the beach at Sawara I was hoping to see a few waders but all I could find were 3 distant Red Necked stints and one very large smelly dolphin corpse. It has been rather hot the last week or so, hot and humid punctuated by some very heavy rain.

We finished off at Shikabe. A late Grays Grasshopper Warbler was still singing. The Japanese Green Pigeons were as skittish as ever, I couldn't get close and anyway even I'd been able to get close it was probably too dark for a decent photo.

On Sunday I went to Ono to look for waders in the ricefields. Osamu has been finding lots of interesting waders again including several species not on my Hakodate list. He also saw the rare Pectoral Sandpiper and Swinhoes Rail.

With the location kindly e-mailed to me I went and saw Little Ringed Plover, several unidentified Snipe and up to 10 Long Toed Stint, a new bird on my local list. They were very shy and it was hard to even get a record shot, this was the best I could manage.

I couldn't find any Green or Marsh Sandpipers (both yet to make my local list), out of the corner of my eye I did briefly see a small wader with white on its rump/tail but couldn't relocate it. Hopefully there will be some waders there next weekend.........

Not much in town, a Glaucous Winged Gull was an early returnee on the beach at Kamiiso on Sunday, a Peregrine near Mt Hakodate, a few Kingfishers here and there, nothing of much interest near my apartment last week.

So England won the series very easily and are now ranked #1.................wonder how long that'll last? Can't believe how abject India have been, Sehwag arriving as the big saviour and then bagging a golden pair just about sums it up.

Liverpool looked good in the first half at least but on the second half showing it is going to be a tough fight to get in the top 4 though Arsenal and Chelsea didn't look so hot either. Mau U were as lucky as ever, may be Moneybags City can pip them this year........

Hope it cools down and the skies clear soon, I haven't taken any decent photos for ages.

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Moving swiftly on.................

A Pacific Swift up near Oshamanbe this afternoon. There were lots of swifts and hirundines flying south and I tried photographing swifts semi-seriously for the first time.

It was hard.

Some heavy cropping going on here.

In amongst the Pacific Swifts were smaller numbers of White Throated Needletails.

We were at Oshamanbe to check out the waders.

The bird on the left is a Red Knot, the one on the right is the very common Grey Tailed Tattler. Red Knot is a fairly scarce species in Japan and this is a new addition to my Japanese list.

There were other wader species around too; Mongolian Plover, Whimbrel, Sanderling, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper and Ruddy Turnstone. Here's a photo of the latter.

And of course the inevitable Red Necked Stints, they were everywhere in small skittish flocks.

This individual appeared to be colour ringed.

Other species today included the first Glaucous Winged Gull of 'winter', Great Egret, Japanese Green Pigeon, Night Heron, Sand Martin, Eastern Marsh Harrier and this young Peregrine.

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Still hot, when will it end?

No footy on tonight. How boring................