Some more old pics

Rainy weather has kept me indoors so here is the second installment of pics from earlier this year which were lost on my (2) defunct second blog(s). They should compensate for the lousy Flycatcher pics below.

This male Long Tailed Duck was part of a group of 15-20 which spent the winter in the port at Oshamanbe. I hope they come back this year.

This has to be the most pi**ed off Great Egret I've ever seen. I normally associate Egrets with tropical or at least sunny climes, not south Hokkaido in the middle of winter.

It remained all through the coldest part of winter though, in a small ice free patch of the lake at Onuma.

A couple more Stellers Sea Eagle shots from Yakumo.

The eagle numbers were lower than normal last year because the salmon numbers were well down meaning less food. There were quite a few at the start of winter but by February almost all had departed (or starved I suppose). Apparently fishermen are reporting low numbers of salmon offshore this year too. I don't know if it's down to overfishing or pollution but either way it's not looking so good for the eagles a second winter running.

Brent Geese are staples for the bird photographer in these here parts, these are all from Hakodate.

And Dusky Thrush are another common winter visitor.

And the easiest birds to photograph are the tame Tits and Nuthatches at Onuma. The Varied Tits are especially photogenic.

Not everything I photograph has feathers.

If I had to pick the bird of 2009 it would have to be the Common Crossbill. I took a hell of a lot of shots from February through to May, all near my flat too.

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The construction noise is reaching a crescendo as they dig up the road and surrounding area to lay pipes and cables. It should be finished in 2 weeks or so. I did however notice new plots of land nearby are being cleared for yet more new houses/apartments. Why? There are already loads of empty ones all over the place. At least the next ones to be constructed might be just out of earshot.

More Flycatcher 'fun'

A sleeping Night Heron on the river yesterday, I spotted this whilst manfully trying to ID all the small migrants flitting around the bushes. These included Arctic Warbler, Stonechat and lots more Flycatchers......

Crappy 100% crops but I think this shows  Grey Streaked Flycatcher in amongst all the Asian Browns (still no Sootys though).

This, I think, is a female or immature Blue and White Flycatcher.

And this is a boring old Asian Brown Flycatcher.

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............

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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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