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One of three Black Crowned Night Herons on the river near my flat this afternoon.

This one appears to have some kind of dragonfly parasite.

The migrants continue to pass through. Here's a crappy shot of an Arctic Warbler. I find warblers as tricky as flycatchers to ID but at least Arctics have a very distinctive buzzing call.

Still no Sooty Flycatchers, here's yet another Asian Brown.

A female Japanese Thrush was skulking in the bushes too but I couldn't get a photo.

Yesterday was my 41st birthday. It was a beautiful day and the start of a 4 day holiday in japan meaning the only northbound route out of Hakodate had huge traffic jams (something that hardly ever happens in this relatively empty corner of Japan).

Despite the glorious weather I didn't see a single bird of interest so here's a view from near Onuma.

The construction outside my window has entered its 12th week (and they do it 7 days a week don't forget), they're now digging up the car park in front of our apartment very very very very very noisily. Bastards.

I watched the Manc derby last night, very exciting stuff although the worst possible result. Liverpool's defence looks terrible, I hope they can hang on for a top 4 finish.

Wader Season #8

3 Red Necked Stints were on the beach at Kamiso this morning. Initially they were very jumpy but they got progressively tamer and I just sat down on the sand and they busily fed only a few feet away. Most of today's photos are only slightly cropped, if at all.

Not much to say really. I arrived, I took a lot of photos and then I went home.

Not much else around. Goosander, Mallard, Grey Heron, Kingfisher, a few Stonechats and a lone Common Sandpiper was about it............

I took a hell of a lot of shots (and filled a 8GB card pretty much) and about half were out of focus. I don't know if it's down to my crappy technique/limitations with the AF of my aging 400D/limitations with the 100-400L or a mixture of 2 or more of these. The 7D should remove one of those obstacles at least. I don't like AI Servo on the 400D so I tend to use to use one shot focus, the 7D has a new focusing system with some new focusing options which I hope will help bumbling idiots like me.

A very photogenic species and they'll be gone very soon so forgive my deluge of Stint shots the last few weeks. They were eating all kinds of stuff including dragonflies.....

One point of interest was the large number of Salmon already in the river. Perhaps this year will see a big Salmon run after all.............

Here's a crappy shot of some Salmon from the river bank, AF was useless so I had to use MF.

Grey Streaked Flycatcher

Another Grey Streaked Flycatcher near my flat yesterday, and slightly better pics than last time too.

More stuff flitting around the bushes, god only knows what half of that stuff is.

There were some more Asian Brown but no Sooty Flycatchers.

The first Teal since May were about as were several Stonechat and the obligatory skulking Night Heron.

I have lots of Red Necked Stint photos to sort through from today in Kamiso, I'll post them later tonight or tomorrow............

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.

If you have time, click on this to send me shooting up the Japanese Nature Blog rankings.......



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.