Quiet summer days begin.......

Another hot day and summer is here in south Hokkaido. From the second week of July to the end of August there generally isn't much to photograph birdwise. This big 'orrible frog was at Onuma yesterday.



I could hear lots of birds in the forest but couldn't see much, the baby Moorhens have left the nest though.........



Back nearer Hakodate this summer plumage Cattle Egret was a nice find.......



I spent a frustrating couple of hours trying to get shots of Reed and /or Chestnut Eared Buntings without any success, luckily the Night Herons and Stonechats were still around (the latter being much shyer than a few weeks ago) as well as all the common stuff.







Lots of Little Cuckoo calling but I couldn't locate any..........

I'm just debating whether to pay $25 for a 3 month subscription to JustinTV to try and watch the Ashes online. I'm reluctant to fork out money just to watch unreliable (and illegal I suppose) internet feeds..........hmmm..........I'll wrestle with this one for a couple of days..........

Can't believe Owen signed for Man U. Surely Benitez could have got him on a similar cheap and almost risk-free contract? Sorry to say but obviously I hope it doesn't work out for him, or at least he doesn't score against Liverpool and/or doesn't provide enough goals for another title for Fergie.

House-building, hay fever........and a rarity.

The weather was pretty hot again today and I spent some time with some Asian House Martins who were gathering nesting materials on a muddy patch on the small river near my flat. Tricky things to get the exposure right on.......









House-building of another kind continues next to our apartment. The noise is driving me crazy as is my hay fever, not something I usually suffer from this last few days but I've been spluttering and sneezing like a coke fiend.

Lots of nestling activity in the neighborhood and several other species came down to take a drink from the river........like these Oriental Greenfinch, Red Cheeked Starling and Tree Sparrow.







I was hoping to get a shot of a young Night Heron but nothing happening there, I saw them several times in early July last year but can't locate them this time.

In my last post I mentioned a Tern I'd seen last weekend in Yakumo. I assumed it was just the East Asian race of Common Tern (which has a black bill) but when I actually looked at my crappy record shots it became clear it was something else. It isn't grey underneath, the tail streamers are not so long and that bill looks chunky.





It's a Gull Billed Tern (ハシブトアジサシ in Japanese), a bit of a rarity. June is a good month for rare terns, 3 years ago I saw a Caspian Tern at Asabu but as I didn't have a camera you'll have to take my word for it.

A short trip

One of many Black Browed Reed Warblers from our weekend away.

We went up to Noboribetsu for just the 1 night, this is a hot spring resort about 3 or 4 hours drive from Hakodate. It's an OK place but a bit of a tourist trap with all the tackiness that entails.



We stopped at Yakumo both ways. Black Browed Reed Warblers were abundant here.







Also around were all the common stuff plus a lone Tern. On first impressions it was probably just the eastern race of Common Tern but Terns of any species are scarce around here (and normally only occur on passage so one at the end of June was unusual). I got some crappy record shots, I saw a Caspian Tern 3 years ago (before my DSLR days so no pics) which was apparently a first for Hokkaido but of course I had no evidence so I wasn't taking any chances this time though, I'll check it out later on my computer at 200% size to confirm ID. The only half decent BIF shot was this Black Kite.



Further up the coast we explored the wetlands (which weren't wet at all) near Oshamanbe. I'd never been here before but they looked pretty good. Common and Oriental Cuckoos, Black Browed Reed and Oriental Warblers, Stonechats, Chestnut Eared Buntings and Bullheaded Shrikes were everywhere and there were also several of these. Lathams Snipe, a bird with one of the strangest calls you'll ever hear.



And here's a male Long Tailed Rosefinch. I call these type of shots 'bird in habitat' ones (as opposed to 'tiny image of out of focus bird' ones).



We also heard lots of Grays Grasshopper Warblers, an impossible bird to find in the undergrowth. It has a cheeky little song but no songflight and it doesn't sing atop bushes either. It has a very similar call to the Little Cuckoo, another bird we heard but couldn't see........

It was pretty hot, by far the warmest weather of the year so far. With it being the weekend the hotel we stayed at was pretty full. I took a hot spring bath before it got too busy and then got drunk in the hotel room in the afternoon before eating way too much at the buffet and then passing out about 9pm............a good night then.

Here are a couple of crappy snaps from the Noboribetsu area......





And we got back to Hakodate just as the sun was going down.........



The construction work nearby continues, it looks like we're getting a new 2 storey apartment block in the vacant land next to our building. This will mean lots and lots of noise and inconvenience for 3 months. I work from home so I notice this kind of stuff, if I was an office drone leaving the house at 8am and getting home after 6pm I wouldn't even notice it but because of my lazy self employed 'lifestyle' I'm going to have to listen to every bang, clank, buzz and whirr. F***ing hell. I'll have to find some new stuff for the ipod and buy a decent cooler so I can shut the windows when I have to work..............

I'm starved of sports, can't wait for the Ashes to begin. At least England should still be in the series until the football season starts..................

Bird photography is just about over until the waders pass through at the end of August. I may get some young Night Heron shots or some more Reed Warblers at Yunokawa in the next week or 2 but apart from that there's nothing much around............

I can borrow my wife's macro lens and try to get some bug shots though. It'll make a nice change from walking around with the big 400mm at least.

Devil's Brew

I'm in a hotel in Noboribetsu drinking the local beer.Hope the photo is the right way up.

Red Cheeked Starlings

 

Not much to report in Hakodate this last week, the weather improved at last though. The Red Cheeked starlings were busy on the river feeding the young which have just left the nest.

 

Most of the action was deep inside the bushes but occasionally they sat out in the open.

 

 

Family groups of Grey Wagtails appeared a couple of days ago, they bred further upstream but move downstream after they've fledged. the Shrike family are also busy but no more grisly sparrow hunting for me to photograph.........

Midsummer in the ricefields..........

A Siberian Stonechat at Ono this afternoon.



The sun finally came out today (and I even got a nasty sunburn on my neck) and we headed out to Onuma and after that the ricefields in Ono. Lots of activity in the padis, lots of young birds and singing adults. Night Herons were everywhere feasting on the frogs and tadpoles, Skylarks were abundant, Chestnut Eared Buntings were singing from the fenceposts, Swallows and Asian House Martins were swooping low over the water and family groups Siberian Stonechats were all over the place.





This tame but bedraggled looking male was star of the day...........









Black Browed Reed Warblers occupied very patch of long grass............a shame that I couldn't get a clear shot all afternoon........





Oriental Reed Warblers were even more numerous.........



And here's a boring pic of a bird I don't get to photograph so often, a female Reed Bunting.......



Earlier we were at Onuma, I got my first mosquito bites of the summer. Not much here. There were birds in the forest but now it's so lush and overgrown they're difficult to find. Lots of Narcissus Flycatcher singing, we heard a Black Woodpecker and I got this so-so shot of a Moorhen in amongst the lotus..........





I spent a frustrating night trying to watch the Lions game on P2P last night. I have to watch this type of stuff on a Windows system alas. Sopcast doesn't seem to work on IE8 and the usually reliable JustinTV seems to be pay per view now..........

Tuesday is the 10th anniversary of my arrival in Japan. My God. I can't believe it's been 10 years. I arrived as a slightly jaded 30 year old and spent the first 4 months in a boring small town about 2 hours north of Tokyo. It was stinking hot and I wondered what I had let myself in for. Things improved when I moved to Hokkaido though........

10 years ago! That was when the internet was still a bit of a novelty (well it was to me anyway). I was single, a heavy smoker and drinker, in debt and still living life as if everything was temporary, nothing had changed since I'd left university. I had no interest in photography and was a partially lapsed birder. Man U were the top team in England and Europe, Liverpool were good but always second or third best. I still cared about music and fashion. I wasn't overweight.

I'm going to crack open a beer (note use of the singular) and think what else has changed since then..............and what hasn't.