Hi chicks

Summer well and truly here. Nests everywhere. The Great Spotted Woodpecker was at Onuma and the Swallows were up near Niseko.

The Woodpecker was apparently the last of the brood and has seemingly been abandoned by its' parents. Not to worry though.





The female Red Cheeked Starling was still feeding it. Bizarre behaviour. Cross-species fostering. the photos were from a couple of days ago. The last chick looked likely to leave the nest pretty soon (and I guess has probably done so).



The Lotus flowers were out at Onuma and there were a few Moorhens walking across the lilies. No Moorehen chicks yet, strange to think that 12 weeks ago in the UK they had already hatched.........



Today we drove up to Niseko. The coast was fogbound, we stopped at Yakumo (3 Great White Egret, 1 Little Egret and all the common stuff). By the time we got to Niseko it was a beautiful warm summer day.





At the various road stations the Swallows and Asian House Martins were nesting. Difficult to take pics as of course they were nesting under dark ceilings. Very slow shutter speeds with a big slow lens like mine......









Thanks to Julian for lunch (he can bake fantastic bread). We visited him in Hirafu Village in boomtown Niseko. God that place is changing fast. And to think I complain about too much construction here in Hakodate......

Lots of Oriental Honey Buzzard today, here's a crappy record shot.......



Nice sunset on the way home.........



I watched the second half of Italy v France this morning. Sorry my Gallic friends but France are as bad as England. No, worse. Your coach is even better comic relief than second choice Steve with his brolly.

Summer in the Ricefields

Nice summer weather this week (and a big earthquake yesterday too, not serious up here but it lasted a long time). There's not much in the way of new birds to see from mid June to mid August, the summer breeders are all busy singing and feeding their young. Siberian Stonechats and Black Browed Reed Warblers are my 2 favourites, so lots of pics of these.

Last Wednesday we went up to Yakumo. Lots of common stuff here. Here's some of a diving Osprey. A bit far offshore and I lost track of it as it dived. The mountain in the background of the first shot is Mt Yotei up in Niseko.







Here's another view of Yotei from a bit further south.



Black Browed Reed Warblers were very common here too.





There were also a few Grays Grasshopper Warblers singing in the bushes but they were impossible to see. Other stuff included Sand Martin, Japanese Thrush, Common Cuckoo, lots of Grey Heron and several Reed Buntings. Yellow Breasted Bunting was apparently here a few days before but I couldn't find it.

This Great White Egret was the most noteworthy other species.



This afternoon we were driving around the ricefields in Ono. We were looking for the Oriental Pratincole from last week but the only waders around were Little Ringed Plover. Lots of Stonechat though.....









Here are some views of Mt Komagadake from various locations all over the Oshima area......



We stopped off at Onuma to try for the Ruddy Kingfishers again but we only had a very brief view before they disappeared off into the forest.....







Last Autumn I saw loads and loads of Night Herons in and around Hakodate. Now I think I've found where they nest in the summer. I've seen a few adult birds around Ono, standing around in the ricefields.





Nervous things, they fly off as soon as you even look at them out of an open car window.......

Here are some more of the common birds around the last week. Chestnut Eared Bunting, Japanese Skylark, Black Faced Bunting and Black Kite.









Not much going on near my flat. Bullheaded Shrikes, Red Cheeked Starlings and Asian House Martin are all breeding (and they'll be the only birds to photograph in July probably). Here's one of the big hairy caterpillars that are everywhere this time of year.....



So Euro 2008 has produced some pretty good games by all accounts. I tried to watch some of the juicier early evening games last week (Germany v Croatia, Portugal v Czech Republic) but they weren't on regular TV here. I guess now would be the time England would have been making their excuses for a dire opening round. It's painful England aren't there but it would have been just as painful if they had been......if that makes sense.

I entered a photo contest in March. It was run by Kitamura Camera. I only won a tiny prize (not even cash, I have to go and pick up my 'present' next weekend) but this pic of a Long Tailed Tit I took in January will be in a national photographic magazine in July. Woohoo!



Wonder what I'll get as my prize? A cloth to clean my lens perhaps? A memory card maybe? The tension is killing me.......

Those Ruddy Kingfishers

I've taken a lot of photos over the last couple of days and I've learned something valuable. People have huge expensive lenses mounted on non-budget DSLR bodies for a reason. I struggled with some forest shots at Onuma........at ISO 800 and with the lens wide open I left most of the photos uncropped. I even used a tripod too.......

Birds out in the open, like these in Ono, are much easier.







So the Ruddy Kingfishers are back in the same tree as last year. Right next to the road. Just a little too far for my 100-400 lens alas and my digiscoping camera seems to have given up the ghost so no respite there either. The only time they came fairly close they were a) hiding behind a branch and b) I had stupidly left the image stabilization off.





My shutter speeds weren't fast enough for flying birds in a green forest. Although the explosion of wood chips as they left the nest hole was pretty impressive.



And the pics weren't much better when they weren't moving much either.......





A couple of miles further round the lake there was Great Spotted Woodpecker nest.





The Woodpeckers had some help...........and this is a bit bizarre I have to say.





This female Red Cheeked Starling seemed a bit confused and insisted on feeding the Woodpecker chicks. Why? Had her own chicks died? Do some birds instinctively provide food when they hear chicks of other species begging for food? Either way the woodpeckers didn't seem to appreciate it and would chase her off every few minutes or so.



Otherwise lots of activity in the forest at Onuma. Lots of singing Warblers, Flycatchers and Thrushes. Wailing calls of Japanese Green Pigeon that sound uncannily like the Clangers, Long Tailed Rosefinch, oh lots of stuff.

Over at Ono there were Stonechat fledglings, more Night Herons and lots of Black Browed Reed Warblers.







Star bird yesterday was an Oriental Pratincole swooping arounnd over the ricefields at Ono (no picture I'm afraid). It was my first new bird of 2008 and a bit of a surprise find. Another surprise was this immature Kittiwake in amongst the gull flocks at Kamiso. The 9th Gull species of the year in Hakodate.



And a slightly hazy view to finish with......



Not much exciting going on in my life at the moment. I watched 'A Mighty Wind' and thought it was pretty funny. I can't get some of the songs out of my head.

I watched the opening 10 minutes of Switzerland v the Czech Republic but couldn't muster any enthusiasm for it and went to bed (the half dozen or so games even a jealous bitter little Ingerlunder like me would watch are all on at 4am), looked at our finances again and thought oh sh*t another tight summer ahead, read an interesting book on the genetic make-up of us Brits (the basic premise of which was we're mostly descended from stone age hunters from Iberia with a stong dash of central European neolithic farmers. Celts, Anglos-Saxons and Vikings merely added a bit of seasoning. And, according to Mr Oppenheimer the indigenous population may have been speaking some form of Germanic language before the 'English' barbarians arrived anyway. Anyway.....).