Rosy Finches in the gloom

We drove out to Shikabe this afternoon. Yesterday had seen heavy rain all day. Rain. Unusual in Hokkaido in winter, all the snow in town and quite a lot in the surrounding countryside has vanished. En route I saw a huge flock of finches, god knows what they were as the flew off into the clouds. They could have been Asian Rosy Finch perhaps. 7 were at Shikabe Harbour and very flighty they were too. Difficult to approach, these were the best shots I could muster. This is a fairly scarce winter visitor to Japan, before today the only sightings I'd had were 2 singles in Hakodate.



Also in the harbour were a couple of Black Necked Grebe and a couple of female Harlequin Duck. In the previous 2 winters I'd been frustrated at trying to get a decent digiscoped picture of this species as they swam around very close to the edge of the harbour. This time, being armed with a decent camera and lens, the damn things stayed out in the middle.

We went back to Onuma. Not terribly good light so not many photo opps. Pretty much the same birds as last time. The Geese, Smew, Eagles and Woodpeckers were all still present but no decent pics today. A close up of some of the Whooper Swans and sunset over the last bit of unfrozen lake.





I downloaded and watched the Extras Xmas Special last night, pretty funny I thought. I miss TV shows (especially comedy) from back home so thank the lord for P2P downloading.

Christmas in Hokkaido

Another Christmas Day been and gone in Hokkaido (my 7th in the last 8 years).

Despite my griping about the locals' cheesy, tacky and (if I was a practising christian) disrespectful take on Christmas I don't mind it here at all. Most years we go to Onuma and the area around the lake is very quiet and certainly looks seasonal with the snow, ice, pine trees and berries. We had lunch in an overpriced but pleasant log house style restaurant. I had a pizza. Unseasonal but tasty.



Most interesting species of the day was Rook. This is quite a scarce winter visitor to Japan and there was a flock of over 100 feeding in the fields on the outskirts of Hakodate. They were here briefly last winter too (last winter's flock also contained Daurian Jackdaw which weren't there this time).







Over at Onuma there were 6 Geese in amongst the Whooper Swans and Mallards. 2 Bean Goose and 4 White Fronted Goose. A bit shy, these were the best shots I could get. Grey Geese tend to be scarce around these parts (though they are common enough in certain areas of Japan). I managed to get close up shots of a female Goldeneye and lone Coot.







Also around at Onuma were 2 White Tailed Eagle, flocks of Redpoll, Siskin and Brambling, 4 Smew and the usual common woodland species.

Today we headed east to Esan.



Mt Esan, a broody steaming volcano if you want to sound romantic. Or a mountain with bits of smoke coming out and a smell of rotten eggs if you don't. A few interesting birds on the coast. Groups of Brent Goose every few miles, large rafts of Red Breasted Merganser, Slavonian and Red Necked Grebes, Glaucous and Glaucous Winged Gulls.

Not a vintage day for photos today so here's a couple of crappy shots to give you a flavour of the area. The Harlequin Ducks were bobbing around well offshore (I'd been hoping they'd be perched on rocks just off the road like they weer a few weeks ago) and there's also a pic of the 2 types of Cormorant we get round here. The big one is a Temimncks and the smaller ones are Pelagic Cormorants.





We finished off on a small river just on the eastern edge of Hakodate. Little Grebe, Great White Egret and Whooper Swan were present as was this small unassuming wader. A Long Billed Plover.



So the year is just about to end, maybe 1 full day's birding to be had depending on the weather. I'll probably post my favourite pictures of 2007 before the 31st, if I remember.

I'm getting a bit tired of sorting through photos, deleting the crappy ones (lots of those), choosing the 'best' ones, converting those from RAW files to jpeg, adjusting levels, cropping and sharpening in photoshop where necessary and then uploading. I seem to spend more time processing photos than taking them. Especially when I get home and have 250 similar quality (ie average) photos...........one of my many NEW Year resolutions will be to find a more efficient way of doing this. As well as losing weight, saving money and finally starting that great script/novel I know I'm going to write one day sometime eventually.

If you had a disappointing Christmas just thank the lord you weren't that fellow in San Francisco who get mauled to death by a Siberian Tiger. Maybe it was a Japanese Tiger and the man was carrying a bucket of KFC.

Yet more average pics of common birds

One of the local Large Billed Crows playing around in the snow a few days ago. They are pretty smart birds these corvids. They know that Tuesday/Friday is burnable garbage day (or they can recognise the red coloured bags). Woe betide anyone who doesn't close the lid on the garbage basket.......the local garbage Nazis would be straight round wagging accusing fingers as the crows spread the rotting vegetables all around the neighbourhood.



The juvenile Night Heron was still around today. I walked down the river to the beach under very grey skies. 3 Redpoll were the main birds of interest although I couldn't get any decent photos. I wasn't carrying the big lens anyway. My plan was to go to a place at the mouth of the river where I saw a male Blue Rock Thrush several times last winter and I have also seen Black Necked/Slavonian Grebes close inshore. There were a couple of Black Necked Grebes bobbing around 100 metres offshore (and a few Brent Geese too) and the Thrush was there but all too briefly and not especially close...........here's a crappy record shot.



Around December 23 down the years:

1983 (Dec 23) Marshside. 2 lifers, Stonechat (!) and Twite. Also lots of waders of 12 species, 3 species of Swan, and 3 Hen Harrier.

1991 (Dec 24) a Great Grey Shrike at Rufford, the only one I've ever seen.

1996 (Dec 24) back in Penwortham for xmas (I was living in Germany at the time). Not much except a flock of 40 Brambling on the Ribble.

2000 (Dec 24) A hunting Peregrine from my balcony in Hakodate.

2001 (Dec 25) Onuma. I proposed to my wife. I had the mother of all hangovers at the time, we fed the Whooper Swans, had lunch and went home. She said yes anyway.

2004 (Dec 21) the last time I was back in the UK and a trip up the river in Penwortham. Thousands of Woodpigeon, flocks of redwing and Fieldfare, skeins of Pinkfeet in the distance, a few common waders.......

2005 (Dec 26) a Great White Egret flapped over my flat.

2006 (Dec 25) Kamiso......we saw a Peregrine catch its' christmas lunch, a female Teal. 3 species of Grebe, 3 White Fronted Goose and 2 Great White Egret were also present. A bit low on decent photos today so here's one of a Ural Owl I took on December 20 last year at Onuma.



We saw this bird several times last winter but it hasn't appeared this winter (or at least it's moved hole).

So Happy Christmas to the tiny number of regular readers to this blog.

Some more common birds.........

A wintry view of Onuma this afternoon.






A couple of close-ups of some of the flock of Whooper Swan at Onuma. Every year a small tame flock of about 70 overwinters in a small unfrozen corner of the lake. They are fed by the local council as a matter of fact. Just about the whole lake is frozen now so they are beginning to congregate. My close-ups weren't entirely successful (I think a normal point and shoot camera would have done the job just as well as the 100-400mm) but I have all winter to get it right. There were also lots of Mallards, a few Tufted Ducks, 3 Coot (relatively uncommon in Japan compared to the UK), sveral teal and a lone Goldeneye.









Lots of common birds in the forest. Jay, Siskin and Hawfinch and the usual common Tits and Woodpeckers. I got my first Treecreeper picture.........which wasn't so great actually. The other usual photogenic species compensated.









Not much new around in Hakodate the last couple of days. This was just outside Kamiso this morning. Not a very good picture but an interesting scene of a distant White tailed Eagle being argy-bargied by some of the local crows.



Over the festive period we should be heading up to Yakumo to hopefully get some decent pictures of Eagles (both Stellers and White tailed).

The 'festive period' in Japan is a bit of a joke. They have christmas decorations and carols in the shops but that's as far as it goes. It's not a holiday and there's none of this 'good will to all men' stuff going on here. It's just an excuse for the shops to con a bit of cash from their customers by inventing an artificial 'festival'. Actually put like that it's not so different. At least we have the pretence of it being vaguely spiritual.

They have a big New Year's thing here anyway which is exactly like christmas back home. Meaningless annual visit to the shrine, time spent eating and drinking with family, cards sent to vast legions of acquaintances who you have no other contact with except sending these cards, a week or so off work (a long time in Japan), absolute mindless drivel on TV (even more so than usual), everything closed or over priced............

Just to show the Japanese have no idea of christmas and have just half-arsededly copied it from the west..............they buy Kentucky Fried Chicken on Christmas day. Turkey is a bird right? KFC is western food isn't it? And they are amazed when I tell them nobody does this in the UK (is KFC even open on the 25th?) and I'm pretty sure nobody does it anywhere except in Japan. The ads are on TV already. Have a Kentucky Christmas.

Here's an interesting article from snopes talking about this kind of stuff. It's pretty funny. I talks about that urban myth (which may actually be true) about the crucified Santa.

I watched an absolute stinker of a movie yesterday. 'Reign of Fire'. A post apocalyptic story (I usually like those). Christian Bale (I think he's a great actor but he must cringe when he watches this). That Scottish actor who always plays sarcastic macho Scotsmen (I forget his name but he was in '300' and 'Timeline'-2 other preposterous movies). Dragons. Crazy American soldiers. Plot holes you could drive a military convoy through. Don't watch it. Trust me on this one.

Some average pictures of some common birds

Two individuals in a groups of 20 or so Long tailed Tits last week. I was looking in Ono for the Rough Legged Buzzard (I didn't see it). The white headed one above is the very cute Hokkaido race of Long tailed Tit and the other one must be the mainland (ie Honshu) race or possibly an invader from the continent. Either way they were extremely active and even though they were very close it was difficult to get a good shot.

Not much birding last week, crappy weather again. And no obliging Kingfishers either. Just common stuff at Kamiso, the usual common 10 or 11 species of Duck including these Greater Scaup.





Nearer home not much else about.........all 3 species of Wagtail on the river yesterday (including the endemic Japanese Wagtail), the Brown Dipper still buzzing around and this Great Spotted Woodpecker. I still haven't got a good shot of this species.



2 other species I haven't really nailed in the good picture stakes are Daurian Redstart and Red Flanked Bluetail. The male Redstart is a flighty nervous thing and was harassing the poor Bluetail meaning I couldn't get a nice shot of either. The Bluetail posed close by momentarily for what would have been a perfect shot except its' forehead and beak were behind a branch. That photo stays on my hard drive. These 2 were with the smaller lens.





The football was painful last night. Actually 2007 has been a pretty grim year for the various sporting teams I follow......England and Liverpool, and the English cricket team too. The year kicked in with England meekly handing back the Ashes before another shocking World Cup. Liverpool made the Champions League final I suppose but as 2007 draws to a close they look no nearer the Premier League title yet again. And Steve McLaren and the useless overhyped England 'stars' have already spoiled my June next year.

I suppose it'll only get better in 2008..............and if it doesn't it'll at least give me something else to moan about other than Japanese construction practices.

One of my students amazed me the other day when he mentioned the Magna Carta. Wow..............I thought. He didn't know much about it (actually neither do I to be frank) so I tried to tell him that old joke about it. You know the one.

Q. Where was the Magna Carta signed?

A. At the bottom.

Crap joke but I still think it's funny.

2007 winding down........

The Kingfisher was still there yesterday.......and in reasonably good light so I took the 400mm lens. This (above) was my favourite shot. Not much else around........December always seems to be a bit of a quiet month. The Kingfisher kept me entertained for half an hour.





It hasn't snowed this week..........in some places the snow has gone, in others it is kind of powdery and in shady places it is hard compacted ice. The river is generally always ice-free so no pronged beaks for this bird.



*WARNING* Ranting ahead.

I went to Yunokawa this morning. A bit depressing as there is a huge construction project going on next to the river. This was an area of farmland/grassland that had breeding Chestnut Eared Bunting/Siberian Stonechat/Black Browed Reed Warbler/Bullheaded Shrike and Latham's Snipe. Now it's full of Japanese men in hardhats and overalls operating huge cranes, drills and diggers. Shifting lots of land, digging and drilling lots of holes. I don't know what they are building. A supermarket perhaps. Another pachinko parlour maybe. The area isn't big (about 3 or 4 footie fields in area I suppose) and in world terms the habitat loss is insignificant but I'm still annoyed. Why build new stuff when there are loads and loads of derelict and empty pieces of land already in town? I think Japanese people prefer concrete to grass anyway. They won't be happy until every last bit of flat land in the country has been concreted over. The country will be one third existing buildings, one third old empty shells of buildings and one third under construction buildings.

I suspect it may even be publicly funded and Yunokawa may be blessed with a useless eyesore masquerading as some kind of 'community centre' or some such crap. They use pointless wasteful construction projects as a way of keeping unemployment figures down. A couple of years ago they 'improved' the river in Yunokawa by chopping down lots of trees (which used to be great for migrants in spring) and channeling the river (before it was gentle and meandering) and of course adding yet more concrete to the riverbanks.

There's a construction project near my flat now. A block of flats. Hakodate's population is actually falling and there are lots of empty apartments. But no. Let's build some more. I can watch them working from my window (and hear them too the noisy bastards). Interesting job descriptions some of them must have. The 2 men whose job it is to wave around those absurd red batons and blow whistles incessantly for no apparent reason. Several workers jobs seem to entail standing around all day watching others work. Others seem to do construction work completely by cellphone or via smoking cigarettes. FIVE MONTHS it will take them!!!! The only thing that hinted at speed and efficiency was when they put up their little prefab hut. The place where they sit around smoking, napping and eating instant noodles all day.

*END OF RANT*

Birds? Not much at Yunokawa fittingly enough except a couple of Great White Egrets. Nice to shoot something that isn't very fast, small and blue. They still flew away as soon as I raised my camera.





Around December 12 down the years:

1986 (Dec 13) A long day's birding on Merseyside began at Marshside.........not much here except lots of Pinkfeet and a few Twite. Nowt at seaforth either and at west Kirby we had a fruitless search for Shore Lark (which I've yet to see anywhere).

1988 (Dec 11). A long day's birding around Newcastle. 2 lifers.......Long Tailed Duck at South Shields and Bohemian Waxwing at Washington. Also saw Eider, Red Throated Diver and lots of Golden Plover plus other common waders........

1998 (Dec 11) I arrived back in England after a long stint abroad (2 years in Germany plus 3 or 4 months travelling around Asia) with no money, no voice, no job and no girlfriend. Gloomy........so I did a lot of birding this week on the Ribble at Penwortham and saw.........nothing interesting at all. 60 Curlew on the 17th seems the most noteworthy entry.

2002 (Dec 13) a male Goshawk near my flat in Hakodate was a lifer. Would have made a great picture if I'd had a camera as it was very close.

2003 (Dec 17). 4 years ago and Yunokawa was much nicer than it is now. Water Rail (my only ever view of this species) and Long Billed Plover (another lifer at the time) were the pick of the day's birds and there were also Japanese Wagtail and Goshawk.

I watched the Liverpool game last night. If they can beat Man U on Sunday and England can appoint a decent manager (I quite like the idea of Capello I have to say) life looks a bit rosier. The cricket team are still sh*t though.

Diving and fishing

Rather gloomy weather recently.........cold and grey (although almost no snow since last week's blizzards). I took a short walk to the river this morning and was rewarded with this shot of a diving Kingfisher. I only had the 300mm lens (I'm too nervous about slipping on the ice and damaging the 400mm) but it did a good job of catching the moment as the Kingfisher left its' perch.



I couldn't get a clear view of it eating the fish.......this is the best one I could manage.

Yesterday I went to Ono chasing a Rough Legged Buzzard. Unfortunately I didn't see it though I did see 1 or 2 Common Buzzards. Common Buzzards are extremely variable (so much that it seems difficult to actually define a single diagnostic ID feature for the Rough Legged). I took some crappy pics which you can see here along with discussion of the ID by people much more knowledgeable than me.

Not much else around the last few days. A male Goshawk and juvenile Night Heron today, White Tailed Eagle at Onuma yesterday, Redpolls still around a few days ago, rafts of Scaup and Goldeneye offshore at Kamiso as welll as flocks of Black Necked Grebe yesterday..........

Naturally we fed the usual suspects at Onuma. I'm tired of posting Nuthatch/Marsh tit pics but luckily there were 2 Varied Tits. Surprisingly Onuma had less snow than Hakodate.





I've tentatively started paying attention to the football again. Big week for Liverpool. And at least for the neutral the Premier League seems a lot more open than recent seasons.

A bit short of images this time so here's a picture of Black Kite from last Friday.