Wader season underway...........

A bit of a grey day yesterday saw me on the beach at Kamiso checking for waders. There were several Red Necked Stints and a very tame Great Knot. It was a very dark day but I was happy with the Great Knot shots at least........







I'd only ever seen this species once, 3 years ago and in almost exactly the same spot.............





I could even take a handheld video on my compact digicam, uncropped........



The Red Necked Stints weren't as tame and were on a different part of the beach. They seemed to like eating/drinking from upturned shells............







Not much else around, a few Grey Tailed Tattler and a returning Black Headed Gull or 2. There were lots of Night Herons at Kamiso this time last year but none at all so far in 2009. I did find a young one on the river near my flat as well as a family of Kingfishers (on several occasions) but couldn't get a picture. A few migrants have been passing through, more Asian Brown Flycatchers and some phylloscopus warblers.

I watched some movies this last week. 'Bruno' was infantile but funny, 'The Damned United' was pretty good even if it wasn't actually 100% factually accurate. I watched the original youtube TV interview with Brian Clough and Don Revie just after Clough had been sacked by Leeds, interesting stuff.

Liverpool were terrible against Spurs but won last night, the squad still looks a bit thin though.

Hope England can confound everyone and win the Final Test.

The noisy bastards outside my window continue to make my life a misery. Only 1 day off in the last 30, they make noise 10-12 hours a day. We have diggers, hammers and saws going as I type. Invading my every thought. My nerves are completely frazzled. Japanese people seem to be able to filter out a lot of this kind of noise but I don't have such skills. By the time they finish at the end of next month I'll be ready to kill someone. Well maybe not kill them but humiliate them in a painful way perhaps. . The CEO of Daiwa House beware.

Things moving..........

An immature/female falcon at Yakumo a couple of days ago. At first glance I thought it was a Hobby (Merlins are winter visitors only). Whatever it was, it was a bit of a surprise..........

Doh! A female Kestrel perhaps? Thanks to Unravel for that one. I've seen thousands of them over the years back in Europe but they're pretty scarce in north Japan and it completely slipped my mind............



We were looking for waders and on the local beaches and rivers there were 6 species present. Nothing too exciting,this Eastern Curlew was at Kamiso.

And these skittish Red Necked Stints were near Oshamanbe.






These are adults, the juveniles pass through later and are generally tamer.

In town a few migrants are passing through. Asian Brown Flycatcher and Stonechat mainly. I haven't managed to locate any young Night Herons yet.................

It's been overcast and humid, not great weather for photos. On Sunday there were fishing Ospreys everywhere as well as fishing Kingfishers but no decent shots of either alas. here's the best of a bad bunch.........



This Whooper Swan must have stayed all summer at Kikonai, 1 or 2 seem to do that every year.......



I did find this big horrible spider. the 100-400L is not a great lens for macro type stuff. I don't know the name of this species but they are very common in summer.



And here's an old fisherman looking for kelp..............



The 11 hours a day/7 days a week construction next door and opposite my flat continues and I'm beyond sick of it.

England reverted to type in the cricket but early on the 5th day of the 1st Test I'd have settled for 1-1 with 1 game to play.

I fell asleep watching the Charity Shield even though it wasn't on especially late, being woken at 7.30am every morning by the aforementioned construction is starting to take its toll.

A grey July day, a video and a mistake

My latest videoscoping experiment: a Black Browed Reed Warbler singing just outside Hakodate this afternoon. The weather has been awful the last few days with lots and lots of rain and uniformly grey skies.

I got a new compact digicam last week, the Canon 780 IS (that's the name in the US, it's the IXUS 100 IS in Europe and the IXY 210 IS in Japan). It's a tiny thing and I got it mainly for the HD video. The above video was through the scope, I had to crop it as I seemed to have moved the camera on the adapter so it wasn't properly lined up with the eyepiece..............I need more practice I think. Focusing accurately is quite hard I have to say and a 65mm scope in poor light doesn't quite fit the bill especially with a 32X eyepiece......

The sound is OK except for my heavy breathing........

You can view it in better quality here. It may take a while to load and it seems to stick halfway through.

The same bird posed nicely for some regular photos.

 

 

 

 

Not much else around this last week to be honest. I achieved my 15 seconds (not minutes) of fame at least...... in a local free magazine. I am the featured 'foreigner of the month' for August!



Note the spelling of 'Hokodate'. Not my error, the editor of the magazine even called and apologised and brought round a box of cakes to emphasize the point.

A boring week, no sport on TV last night so I got drunk instead and now I'm hot, tired, grumpy and hungover as well as bored.

The construction work continues, both next to and opposite my apartment. The trees across the road have been cut down and the grass has been replaced by mud. I saw some good species in those trees........ Japanese Waxwing, Crossbill, Asian Brown Flycatcher, Arctic Warbler. The noise will become unbearable soon I'm sure. 6 (or 7) days a week of hammering, drilling, sawing, whirring, tapping and shouting. 8am start to deny me a sleep-in too. Why are they building new houses anyway? the population of Hakodate is falling and there are empty apartments everywhere. This country is run by and for the construction industry.

The next General Election is coming up. That's almost as noisy as pointless construction projects. Electioneering here consists of volunteers driving slowly around the streets blasting out propaganda from loudspeakers or candidates bellowing out their names over and over again and asking people to vote for them. They don't say why we should vote for them of course.

The same people always win anyway, Japan has such a conservative and passive electorate. The word on the street this time round says that might change next month though but I doubt it............

Things will look up in a few weeks and I can stop my moaning; the Ashes resumes this week, the footy season will start in 3 weeks, the waders will come through in about 5 weeks at about the same time as the election finishes, we have a 4 day holiday in September, the construction goons will finally finish and f**k off in about 9 weeks and oh yes the 60D might be announced in a couple of months and I can finally upgrade my DSLR.

July babes

 

A baby Moorhen at Onuma this afternoon. A hot day and a last days birding with Dan who is back off to Canada next week. He got 2 new for his J-list today, Sand Martin (a group of 10 or so at Kamiso) and Japanese Green Pigeon near Mori.......

 

The Sand Martin were also a new species on my local list. Other stuff at Kamiso included the usual farmland stuff plus Osprey, Kingfisher, Common Sandpiper, Night Heron and Little Egret. At Onuma there was nothing much about although my wife did manage to see a Flying Squirrel.....

Up the coast there were some baby Little Ringed Plover.....

 

And Mt Komagadake was looking as nice as ever.

 

England managed to win the 2nd Test with the minimum of fuss, I was expecting Australia to either win or to get very very close. If Flintoff and Pietersen are fit (a big if I know) it could be England's summer. Australia can't play as badly as that again and will presumably change the side around. I predict the Ashes will still be up for grabs in the 5th Test, something that looked very unlikely this time last week when they were grimly hanging on in Cardiff......

More house-building

 

Not much around this week, heavy rain has meant the river is swollen so the Night Heron has nowhere to stand. These Asian House Martins were gathering mud in some of the puddles....

 

 

 

Just watching the second day of the second test............England's 10 and 11 got some unexpected runs and Australia 22/2 at lunch..........hmmmmmm..............

A long day...........

 

 

 

 

Some of the common birds around this afternoon in the ricefields on the edge of town. Barn Swallow, Night Heron and Skylark........

All the usual stuff is still present, the most difficult one to photograph yesterday afternoon was this Chestnut Eared Bunting......





I stayed up until 3am to watch England somehow cling on for the draw in the 1st test. Now I'm exhausted and lounging around the apartment listening to the rain outside (at least the rain means a temporary lull in the construction noise).........

More of the same.......

 

 

The Night Heron was in the same place again and striking a few nice poses too. The light was a bit poor though......

It seems to have developed into a bit of a local celebrity; I noticed several people stop and peer into the bushes it usualy flaps off into as soon as it realises it's being watched.

The cricket took a turn for the worse, England's bowling (Flintoff aside) looked very average indeed.

A quiet week in July

 

A Black Crowned Night Heron on the river this afternoon, in a dark shady place so not a great shot. No sign of any of the young ones......

A quiet week, not much around. Hot, humid and boring, July is my least favourite month of the year in Hokkaido. At least I found a site to watch the Ashes live, I managed to catch the whole of the 2nd and 3rd sessions of the first day of the first Test. Nicely poised game too.......

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.