Under the weather.....

A male Crossbill a couple of days ago near my flat. Just when I think they've finally left, a few individuals pop up to surprise me. They ignored the pine trees (I think all the seeds have been eaten anyway) and looked a bit unsure tackling whatever blossoms these were..........



As you can see it was beautiful weather. Unfortunately for most of the week I had a cold and was stuck in bed or trying to work. On Monday we headed over to Esan, not much about except for a few lingering winter birds. Here are 2 common residents, a Japanese Wagtail and Blue Rock Thrush.





We went up Mt Hakodate at dawn on Tuesday just as my cold was kicking in. It was a bit quiet to be honest, not many birds around at all. I think the clear weather has meant migrants just passing straight through. On the river near my place I saw Eastern Crowned Warbler and Asian Brown Flycatcher. The first Oriental Reed Warblers appeared today and the numbers of Red Cheeked Starlings has been increasing every day........





We went to Onuma this afternoon very briefly. Lots of stuff around, plenty of singing Narcissus Flycatcher, Japanese Thrush and Eastern Crowned Warbler but nothing posung for the camera.

A very slow week for pictures, here's a crappy one of Mt Esan to the east of Hakodate....



Man U have just gone 2-0 up against City as I type this, looking like it'll all be over before Liverpool even play again. Man City look especially toothless, can't believe they're the richest club in the world. The commentator on Sky's international feed is an annoyingly biased fawning pro Man U moron too. I just switched it off.

I taped the Champions League semi-finals, on Tuesday I just left the tape running before I went to bed but unfortunately I miscalculated the point at which the game started and when I pressed 'play' Man U were already 2-0 up against Arsenal. The Chelsea game was more entertaining, I wish Ballack had actually punched the ref at the end. Not that Chelsea especially deserved to go through or anything. It would just have been funny to see.

Another busy week coming up, looks like the prime birding month of the year (May) is going to pass me by slightly.

A somewhat busy week......

After last week's dearth of pictures I have loads this week, including the above Coal Tit at Onuma a couple of days ago.

Spring migration is well underway. Near my flat in the bushes by the river were more Red Flanked Bluetail, several Japanese Bush Warbler and this species, a Short Tailed Bush Warbler.



Japanese Bush Warblers must qualify as one of the most boring looking birds on the planet.



But they do have a rather startling song......



Eastern Crowned Warblers have been everywhere too, near my flat, on Mt Hakodate and also at Onuma where I took this photo.



This is one of 3 phylloscopus (sp?) Warblers in spring and by far the commonest........

The Red Flanked Bluetails really remind me of Robins back home...



The cherry blossoms are out. This is a bit of a Japanese cliche.





I've been here for ten springs now and don't really get excited by these anymore but boy do the locals love them.......

Japanese White-eyes are locals I suppose.......





Other spring migrants in the last few days have included Blue and White Flycatcher, Grey Bunting, lots of Japanese Robin (these were singing on Mt Hakodate a couple of days ago) and several species of wader. Today at Shiriuchi and Kikonai we saw Greenshank, Bar Tailed Godwit, Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper and one of the 4 impossible to ID species of Snipe. This bird was the most interesting, an adult Striated Heron which is pretty scarce up here.....



Some wader shots are here.

The weather has been pretty warm the last few days and I can't believe last week it was snowing. The snow was still around at Onuma on Thursday though....



Onuma is a beautiful place.



It's a shame the forest is full of litter though. And this is the view I got when I walked out of the small station at Choshiguchi.



Looks like some kind of post-apocalyptic movie set. It also smelt strongly of natto. This is a foul smelling food not well known outside of Japan. It smells like very old socks dipped in ammonia. Either they were making natto or fixing the septic tanks, dunno which one.

The resident species were all present and correct....





The Black Woodpeckers were still at their nesthole but I left them well alone. This Grey Headed Woodpecker was a nice find nearby.......



And the turtles have reappeared at Omuma.......



More Onuma shots are here.

And in Hakodate a couple of Crossbills made a surprise appearance in the park near my flat......






So the 2 Champions League semi-finals were rather dull. Barcelona were particularly disappointing, I actually want them to win as I'm tired of the Premier Leagues's domination (unless Liverpool win it of course) but they looked a tad overhyped. God help us if it's Man U/Chelsea again...........

What else is going on? Not much, I'm in the middle of a few days off. Early May is a big holiday period in Japan (and it co-incides with the cherry blossoms opening here in Hakodate so you can imagine the hordes).

I'm off drinking tonight........let's hope Boro can pull of a shock against Man U before I leave the flat. Of course I hope Liverpool beat Newcastle tomorrow but I'll be sad if (or rather when) Newcastle go down. I went to university in Newcastle and in fact lived very near St James Park. I only saw 1 game when I was there, a 2-2 draw against Liverpool (1988 or 1989?). How times have changed. Much was made about one of Newcatle's line-up that day. They had (gasp in amazement) a Brazilian player!!! Who'd have thought it eh? Mirandinha or whatever his name was. Another thing which shows how the game has changed was that sections of the crowd made monkey noises when John Barnes got the ball. I'm not 100% sure but I think Newcastle got relegated that season too........

I'm going to open a galleries page on smugmug. I've already started actually.

This week's episode of 'Shameless' made me laugh out loud, Frank Gallagher at the funeral............

Another very quiet week....

Today it was snowing. All day, heavy slushy wet sleety snow. In late April. Global warming my a*se.

So we didn't go out anywhere today..........I tried redoing some of my photo galleries on my main website but I'm still not 100% happy. The page isn't finished yet, these are made using Rapidweaver. I tried Apples MobileMe but didn't really like the gallery styles there, ditto iphoto. Adobe Lightroom's galleries are great (some are linked on the right) but I can't automatically sync or update them.　Should I try SmugMug? Dunno.

Sorry that last paragraph was so boring. The whole of the week has been pretty dull. A very very quiet week, awful weather combined with a busy working schedule meant I didn't get out much. I managed to get up Mt Hakodate again on Friday on the only sunny day of the week, not much around, you can see photos of the day here.

A few summer migrants arriving this week (the first Red Cheeked Starlings and Short Tailed Bush Warblers) but not much happening in the way of photos, except for the chipmunks again. They fulfill the same role as the Nuthatches at Onuma, wild fauna but tame and photogenic and useful for padding out blog posts when there's not much else going on......



Somebody tossed some food to this one, what is it? A lychee?

Lots of Red Flanked Bluetails on the trails but these are turning into a bit of a photographic bogey species.

So, er, that's it. Man U are going to win the Premier League. I missed both Liverpool's recent 4-4 draws (both on in the middle of the night here). Actually I did get up to watch the end of the Champions League game against Chelsea. I woke up and sleepily checked the latest score on my cellphone browser and it was 4-3 to Liverpool with 5 minutes to go! I got up just in time to see Lampard's goal that killed off the tie.........

I hope the weather improves this week, I have 5 days off from Wednesday. The migration season tends to pick up dramatically in the last 3 or 4 days of April so fingers crossed.........

Black Woodpeckers and other stuff.....

A Black Woodpecker this morning at Onuma, we came across a pair excavating a nest hole, snapped some shots and moved on quickly(although the birds didn't seem to mind so much). The male was shyer than the female though, so most of the shots were of the female.........





It was a beautiful spring day but the forest was surprisingly quiet. All the resident species were present including the inevitable Tits and Nuthatches.





Also seen today were Mandarin Duck, Goosander, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Siskin, Rustic Bunting and 4 species of Woodpecker.

Some birds were tricky to see.



Otherwise a pretty quiet week again................



On Friday I climbed to the top of Mt Hakodate, it was a beautiful sunny day as you can see from this view from the top. The mountain trails were rather busy and full of retired locals hiking up the modest hill ('mountain' is too grand a term). Despite the mild spring weather and total lack of snow for the last month some of them were kitted out in full hiking regalia and I actually burst out laughing when one woman walked past me in a gore-tex coat and gaiters (it was very bright and sunny, it has only rained once in the last 2 weeks and the forecast is good for several days). I didn't actually see any ice-axes but I'm sure some of them had them in their packs. I swear I went trekking for 10 days in the Himalaya with less gear then these folks used for a 60 minute stroll to the top of a hill that has a road to the top and a tourist cable car...........

Memo to Japanese hikers #1: When walking it is more efficient to hold a conversation with someone next to you rather than shout to someone 50 yards in front or behind.

Memo to Japanese hikers #2: Please leave your stupid f**king radios at home and don't play loud tinny sounding radio shows from a radio dangling from your pack.

Birds? Lots of Red Flanked Bluetail but these were difficult to photograph, darn active little critters........this was the best of a bad bunch.



Other new arrivals included Black Faced Bunting, Siberian Stonechat, lots of Japanese Bush Warbler and Japanese White-eye. On the sea were Rhinoceros Auklet and Black Throated Diver and the usual resident species were much in evidence.......





Other stuff included Long Tailed Rosefinch, Siberian Meadow Bunting and Blue Rock thrush. The last few Crossbills, Bullfinches and Brambling were hanging on in the forest at the foot of the mountain (I actually briefly saw a male Crossbill in the tree opposite my flat a couple of days ago).

The most photographed creature of the day was this, lots of Asiatic Chipmunk live in the forest on Mt Hakodate and you have to admit they are cute.......





And here's a sunset from my balcony tonight........



More bird photos are on my other blog.............which nobody seems to ever look at according to google analytics.

And a familiar view that I have shown on this blog many many times...........but never in sepia tones.





Villain of the week: Yamada Denki for unbelievably crap service.

Disappointment of the week: the fact that Liverpool's season may effectively be over on Wednesday night.

Photoshop thingy of the week: I'm trying to get a handle on the curves thing.

A very quiet week........

Good old reliable Nuthatches. A Wryneck at Asabu and a male Black Woodpecker at Onuma were nowhere near as co-operative and the blurry out of focus pictures have already been deleted off my hard drive and memory card........

It was a gorgeous warm spring day and we headed over to Asabu. The Ospreys were already on the nest but as you can see it is a long way off.



A 100% crop a minute or so later reveals the 2 birds on top of the stack.



Asabu is a good place in summer for birds but today there really wasn't much about. The Wryneck and Ospreys were the only noteworthy species. The only singing species was the hordes of Skylark. They were everywhere.



And there were a few Red Breasted Mergansers in the nearby fishing harbours too........



It's been a quiet week in Hakodate, even though the weather has been pretty good I haven't been out so much. My business has picked up quite nicely plus my wife is working full-time so taking pics of birds is taking a bit of a back seat.

I saw the last Crossbill (a flyover male) on Tuesday but there was a flock of 5 in the local park on Monday including this tame individual......



Shame they seem to have gone. The most photographed bird of the year so far in Hakodate this year and I'm already hoping they return next winter (they've been common the last two winters but were absent for the three before yet common the three before that).

Otherwise not much at all. A singing Japanese Bush Warbler on Friday was the first of the year and the lone adult Night Heron was in the same place most of the week.



And groups of Teal have been courting on the local river, here's a male.



The first Bullheaded Shrikes appeared too and a few winter ducks were still hanging on in Kamiso this morning (Scaup mainly).

Bad result for Liverpool against Chelsea the other night and now Man U seem to have uncovered another annoying young south European. Damn.

Another busy week coming up...........