Full circle.......

It's all come full circle. Last March a Night Heron standing close by to the river inspired me to purchase my DSLR and the same (?) bird was standing in almost exactly the same place yesterday. It looked pretty cold. I took a lot of shots at various settings (I had the time) on my smaller 70-300 lens. I cropped some, left some in their original sizes. They all look pretty much the same though.





It flapped over to some cover after a few moments. The Long tailed Tits were still around and although the AF on the 70-300 isn't as good as the 100-400 I could still get some ok shots. The second one isn't even cropped.





Also around were lots of the common stuff including several Brambling.



I took the big lens out with me today but the weather was wretched. Sleet turning into heavyish rain and very very poor light. The Night Heron wasn't around but the Crossbills were.





There were a few interesting things round and about. Kingfisher, Long Tailed Rosefinch, lots of Hawfinch and more Redpoll. Shame about the lighting though...



Hope the weather improves soon. Another visit to immigration tommorrow (they said the would be open so they better had be) and hopefully on to Onuma...........if it stops raining/snowing/sleeting.

Red Tape and Redpolls

One of many Redpolls around this afternoon. A rather chilly day too. I met Dan and we walked down the river to the beach in the raw wintry weather. Quite a bit of stuff around. 5 species of Duck including a drake Wigeon, 1 Asian Rosy Finch, several Hawfinch and the Thayers Gull which is presumably moulting into summer plumage as it's looking somewhat bedraggled.



I had a bad experience with Japanese bureacracy last week. I have a permant residency visa stamped in my passport but I still need a re-entry permit. I need one as my old one expired last year sometime. I have to provide a copy to my travel agent as the Japanese government likes to keep track of all foreign comings and goings to, like, you know 'prevent terroism' or something. I'll be fingerprinted next time I re-enter Japan too. Memo to foreign terroists: jump through all this stupid hoops and you can attack the Tokyo subway with biological or chemical weapons just like Japanese nationals have done before in what is the only terroist act to occur on Japanese soil in modern times.

So anyway off I went to the Immigration Office on Thursday. When I got there it was closed. All day, because all the staff had to go to Hakodate airport to meet one international flight. Unbelievable I thought. Wouldn't it be logical to leave one staff member in the office? Apparently not. I came back on Friday morning and the office was closed again so I went out to the airport. Of course there was zero activity in the international terminal (just one flight landing several hours later). I got to speak to one of the Immigration 'Officers' who said he couldn't do the paperwork for my re-entry permit at the airport (I had all the documents/revenue stamps etc).

This is when it got really stupid. I asked him if his office would be oipen on Monday. He said that he didn't know. HE DIDN'T KNOW! What was he expecting to happen? An international flight unexpectedly landing at the airport so him and his useless colleagues had better hang around just in case? I bit my tongue and asked for his office number so at least I could call to check if anyone was there. The idiot didn't even know his office number. He disappeared and several minutes later re-emerged to give me the number handwritten on a Hello Kitty memo pad. Morons.

I did see a Black Crowned Night Heron on the way back from one of my wasted vists to Immigration. Of course it was hiding behind a branch (I saw it beiing mercilessly harassed by the local Crows).



And here's a soaked Blue Rock Thrush taken a couple of days ago.



The Redpolls were very photogenic today particularly this individual.





I also saw the Crossbills again but it was impossible to get a good shot. This is the best, ironically it kind of looks like a pine cone.



The Long Tailed Tits were still around, these shots (like the Night Heron above) were taken with the 70-300 lens.





And here's a random Hakodate image from my recent wanderings around town.



I watched the first episode of 'Ashes to Ashes' last night. A carbon copy of 'Life on Mars' only not as good..............hmmm. I'll still probably watch the rest of the series though. What about poor old Newcastle? I think Keegan may well resign before the end of the season. Managers should never go back. Never. Look at Howard Kendall and Graham Taylor in their second spells at Everton and Villa. As useless as Hakodate Immigration Officers.

Finch season continues.........

Crossbill was bird of the day but there was some other interesting winter stuff around today too.







I got up at 4.45am to watch Liverpool surprise me and beat Inter Milan 2-0. By the time the game had finished and I'd had breakfast the sun was up and it was a beautiful clear morning. I went to the nearby park to check if the Rosy Finches were there. They were but not as close as yesterday. The Crossbills were back, about half a dozen of them. One male in particular was very photogenic.





Here's a 100% crop of the photo at the top of the page.



There were also some Redpolls very close but I had the exposure compensation on (I had been taking Crossbill pics against the sun) and the photos were horribly overexposed and blurry due to the slow shutter speeds. Memo to self:remember to change camera back to your default settings once in a while. Here's one of the baclkit Crossbills.



Whilst I was sneaking around in the park I was attacked. By a Large Billled Crow. Gave me quite a smack to the head (I thought someone had thrown something at first). I like birds and am not an aggressive or violent person but I want to kill that crow. I had to leave the Crossbills to it and go back to accept the delivery of the new fridge before I headed out again to Goryokaku Park. The mild weather meant it was slushy but at least it was quiet (although some tree-trimming oyajis shattered the calm later on). Large flocks of Dusky Thrush Hawfinch, Brambling and Redpoll were feeding on te newly expose grassy bits. Here's pics of the first 2.





I don't know how grassy it'll be tomorrow as it's snowing again outside..........

Lots of birds at tops of trees today meaning some stange angles (and lots of butt shots). Here's a Brambling and Hawfinch.





The Long Tailed Tits I saw on Sunday seemed to have relocated to Goryokaku Park. They were as difficult as ever to get a good shot of.



There was also a lone Bohemian Waxwing. Not much of an invasion (I'm not sure if I've ever seen a Waxwing on its'own before), hopefully there'll be more arriving soon. I can't complain though as ther have been some great birds near my flat the past 4 days and almost all of them have posed nicely for photos (the Redpolls too, it was my cack-handedness that ruined that shot).





Other stuff of interest today included a Great White Egret flapping slowly overhead (but not slowly enough to lat me take my camera out of the bag for a shot), flocks of Coal Tit and a few Siskin and Oriental Greenfinch to add to a Finchy day.

I was happy when Gerard banged that goal in, it heralded a good day (apart from the Crow assualt that is). And our apartment is serenely quiet after the noisy old fridge was taken away............

Asian Rosy Finches

Beautiful springlike weather this morning in Hakodate. I popped out to the local park near my flat to see if the Crossbills were still there. No Crossbills but lots of Redpoll, Hawfinch and these Rosy Finch. About 10 of them. I've never seen then so close to home and unlike the other Rosy Finches in the countryside these urbane ones didn't mind being photographed.





There have been lots of this species this winter. Kind of a large chunky linnet on steroids type bird.





I probably won't be able to photograph them again for another 3 or 4 years so forgive the deluge.



Here are a few of the other birds from today. Unlike the above photos all (except the Kite) were taken with the smaller 70-300 lens. It's a cross section of the commoner species around............Dusky Thrush, Hawfinch, Daurian Redstart, Spot Billed Duck and Black Kite.








I watched 'Beowulf' last night. The first ever English novel. Even though it's about Scandinavians. Ray Winstone was the eponymous hero and spoke in a kind of cockney accent trying to be posh type voice. I kept expecting him to kill Grendel with a pool ball stuffed in a sock (actually the way he killed him was only slightly less subtle). At least Winstone's voice sounded more or less normal. Why do American movie makers make historical movies and tell the actors to use cod Ye olde Englishe/Oirish accents? All those rolled 'rrrrrrrs' got on my nerves. Kind of spoiled it a bit. Though of course the movie was pretty preposterous anyway. At least we get to see Angelina Jolies tits. Except we don't as it's actually animated. Plus she has some kind of tentacle thing going on.

I have 'Into the Wild', 'AVP 2' and 'Sweeney Todd' to keep me occupied over the next few days.

Our fridge is on its' last legs so we bought a new one. I have to wait at home on my day off for them to deliver it. The old fridge is humming away in the kitchen like a F1 car revving up. God knows what we'll discover behind it when the delivery oyajis take the old one away tomorrow. Maybe the spare carkeys (which I mislaid recently)?

I'm planning to get up at 4.45am to watch Liverpool v Inter Milan. I'm stupid like that.

Crossbills, fascists and a death in the fishtank

Some of a small group of Common Crossbill near my flat this afternoon. These are the first I've seen in Hakodate for ages (since 2004 in fact) but like Redpoll and Asian Rosy Finch they are present this winter after a long absence.



Also around in the same general area were a party of Long Tailed Tit, a species I haven't seen in town before today. They were as active as ever but this individual stayed still long enough for a couple of nice shots.





Also around today were Peregrine, Redpoll, Brambling and lots of Dusky Thrush/Grey Starling everywhere feeding on the abundant berries (I've given up on Waxwings thsi winter). I watched the Crossbills feed above me in some pinetrees for a few moments. Odd looking birds it has to be said. I assume this is just the regular Red/Common Crossbill. I remember in springs 2003/4 there were loads of them and they were very tame. The first ones I ever saw were in Scotland in 1984. I counted them as 'Scottish' Crossbill (hey they were in Scotland weren't they?) but they were just as likely Common or even Parrot Crossbill.







Whilst walking around town today I couldn't avoid these charming folk. Snapped with my 100-400 lens (not the ideal lens for shooting right wing propaganda vans).



'Uyoku dantai' they are called. Japanese Nationalists. They drive very very slowly around town in those black trucks with absurd pompous military music blasting out, bellowing out slogans about something or other (Japan's glorious imperial past or kick out those nasty foreigners or some such nonsense). If there are laws about noise pollution the police choose not to enforce them (they're probably off-duty cops driving the bus anyway). The music sounds a bit like the theme from 'The Water Margin' only not as cool. You can read more about these groups here.

There are rumours that the Russian head of state will visit Hakodate this year after the G8 summit up in Toya. These right wing groups are constantly protesting about how the Russians cheekily pinched several Japanese islands at the end of the war (memo to J-fascists:riding slowly around my neighbourhood blasting out that crappy music will never ever ever result in Russia renouncing those territorial gains. Trust me on this one. I studied politics at University). The upshot of that will apparently be hordes of these black vans/buses descending on Hakodate to annoy the visting Russian delegation. F***ing wonderful. I'll have to make sure I'm out of town for that one.

You know that shrimp I bought on Tuesday? It's dead, bobbing around lifelessly at the back of the fishtank. Hank the Clownfish is a psycho.

The footy season plumbed new depths last night. I actually laughed when Barnsley scored. I mean how worse can the 2007/8 season get? I can't really see Rafa surviving now unless we have a good Champions League run. By 'good' I mean 'win it'.