Wader Season #7

Wader season continues. This is one of 2 scruffy looking  Dunlin on the beach at Kamiso just before sunset today. Marginal conditions for my set-up, the lens was wide open and ISO was up to 800 meaning some fairly crappy shots. Hopefully the 7D will serve me better.

One Red Necked Stint and the two Bar Tailed Godwits remained from Friday.

Common Sandpiper and Grey Tailed Tattler were also around but most of today's shots are of grainy blurry Dunlins.

We made it out to Onuma but nothing there except mosquitoes. Over at Shikabe there was a Common Guilemot bobbing around offshore but absolutely no waders whatsover.

This lighthouse used to be the spot in Hokkaido for seeing Gyrfalcons.

But not anymore (and anyway they were only in winter and actually they had stopped coming by the time we got a car and were in a position to visit the location). There was a Peregrine around as well as this young Goshawk which took off before I could get a decent shot.

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Wader Season #6

   

There were still 4 or 5 Red Necked Stints at Kamiso this lunchtime.

And there were several other species of wader including 1 Ruff and 2 Bar Tailed Godwit.........

The light wasn't exactly ideal, harsh midday sun behind the birds..............

2 Grey Plover were also around but they didn't want to be photographed alas.

The Ruff didn't seem to mind the attention though.................

The Red Necked Stint was in better lighting.............

Nearer home there were more migrants passing through, Eastern Crowned Warblers, Siberian Stonechats and yet more Asian Brown Flycatchers............

Other stuff flitting around in the undergrowth was left unidentified, probably just Black Faced Buntings or the suchlike.

Here's a very scruffy looking young Bullheaded Shrike.........

The Night Herons are still playing hide and seek............

This blogger service has changed  its interface so I don't know how this will turn out.........

Great result for England the other night but lets not get too carried away. I've been watching England for over 30 years and am a little too jaded to really believe they can get past the last 8. Still when you think it was only just over 12 months ago they were drawing 0-0 at half-time against Andorra and qualification, hell even second place and a play off place,  seemed a long long way off. Unbelievable that Heskey is still playing. Yes I know he brings others into the game, roughs up opponents' defences etc etc but those 2 absolute sitters he missed!?! C'mon Emile even I could've scored them..............................................

England 's World Cup qualification and the Ashes Victory mean 2009 is shaping up to be a pretty good year for my armchair sports...............................

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Wader Season #5

Wader season continues in south Hokkaido, this week is usually the peak..............






The Red Necked Stints were still on the same stretch of beach at Kamiso. They are surprisingly difficult to see sometimes and for non birding folk walking on the beach they are probably just about invisible..........













They were pretty tame. As you can see from this pic of my wife.........



There were also quite a few Grey Tailed Tattler around too........





The Tattlers and Stints are by far the commonest passage shorebirds but there are other species around too. Here's a crappy record shot of a Grey Plover, a local tick no less.



The only other wader species today was a Common Sandpiper. A few Harlequin Duck were around, the first of the winter visitors (even though it was a hot sultry day).

I fell asleep during the England game last night. I see Diego Maradonna is proving the rule that great players generally make crap coaches/managers. If I was a French/Portuguese fan I might start looking at alternative plans for next summer. Just watching the 2nd ODI, seems like a real anticlimax after the Ashes...........

Wader Season #4

We had a couple of hours in the late afternoon today so we headed out to Kamsio and there was a group of 10 or so Red Necked Stints on the beach.................







They were pretty tame and posed nicely, these pics are only slightly cropped...........





The late afternoon light helped a lot with these shots..........







Not much sport online to watch, guess I'll watch Scotland crash out of the WCQs, can't be bothered staying up to watch the meaningless England friendly though.........