A Tale of Three Eagles

So here's an adult Stellers Sea Eagle enjoying a breakfast of Salmon yesterday. This species, the biggest eagle species in the world, shares the river with its congener, the smaller White Tailed Eagle.

You'd think it would be the dominant one and wouldn't be bullied by anything with feathers, right?

Here comes an immature White Tailed Eagle.

After some posturing the Stellers backed off. It had its white feathery ass well and truly whipped by an immature White Tailed! It didn't even attempt to wrestle back the Salmon but just stood there looking pi**ed off.

Enter an adult White Tailed.

The Stellers left in a huff.

The immature left too leaving the adult White Tailed to dine alone and in peace.

Well alone except for that Carrion Crow.

So are White Taileds dominant over Stellers? I've seen this several times now. Or we just talking about personalities of individual eagles and this Stellers was particularly cowardly? Who knows............

These shots were taken out of the car window. When the snow starts to fall (next week I guess but this winter has been very mild so far) it'll be impossible to do this as the snowbanks on the side of the road will be too high to see over plus anyway the road will be too narrow to safely pull over.......

These photos are all cropped over 50%, I tried taking video with my 7D but haven't gotten the hang of it yet (and handheld is a no-no I think).

Lots of Salmon in the river and already a fair number of eagles point to a good winter for such photos, fingers crossed.........

Winter Staples

A Varied Tit at Onuma yesterday morning. We stopped en route to Yakumo and the tame Tits and Nuthatches were present and provided good photo opps in the morning light.

The Varied Tits were joined by Nuthatch and Marsh Tit.

The forest was full of all the usual resident species. Black Woodpecker was the most interesting but I couldn't get a decent photo. Although there was some snow on the ground the lake remains ice-free and there were various common ducks scattered around including flocks of Goosander and a few Goldeneye.

Varied Tits are pretty photogenic it has to be said.

The local Red Foxes look a lot better in winter than summer.........

We then headed up to Yakumo to  find some eagles. We stayed in a hot spring hotel deep in the mountains so we had plenty of time. The first day saw us arrive in great weather but the eagles weren't very approachable and tended to stay up in the skies.........like this adult White Tailed Eagle.

There seemed to be about 40-50 individuals of both species present. Most of the Stellers Sea eagles were adults. They were either high overhead up in the trees in places it was impossible to stop or approach. I walked over a slushy field to get a closer view of some (this will be impossible in a week or 2 when the first heavy snow hits).............

I have some better eagle shots i'll post in a day or 2.

Also around at Yakumo upstream with the eagles were several Crested Kingfisher, Brown Dipper, Japanese Wagtail as well as common woodland stuff and winter ducks. Lots of Black Kites too which fly much closer than the eagles...........

Not much at the river mouth, a few Great Egret..............

F**k up of the week: I accidentally washed my wallet. It was in my pants pocket and i forgot to remove it fwhen I washed said pants in the washing machine. Oops. I now have a very clean but soggy ¥13000 and even cleaner credit cards. It could have been worse: the money will dry out and the cards seem to have come through unscathed.

The hotel we stayed in was pretty basic but in a great location. The room didn't have a fridge but it was cold enough on the windowsill to keep the beer drinkable. The food was also very basic but OK. After 10 years here though the words 'Japanese Breakfast' fill me with dread. I ate several fish heads at dinner and they were much better than I could possibly have expected.

Liverpool were poor against Man City and after they get knocked out of the Champions League the 2009/10 season is shaping up to be the worst in a long long time..........can Rafa confound us all and actually buy a decent player in the January transfer window?

Colourful birds and grey grey weather......

A male Harlequin Duck near Hakodate dock this morning. I went to a nice spot I know to see if the Brent Geese had arrived yet but there was no sign but the Harlequins were not as shy as usual and came much closer than normal.

Shame about the weather, it's been awful this last week. Rain earlier on and snow the last 2 or 3 days. One day I'll get a photo of a Harlequin Duck up close and in good light.

They were diving for small crabs, as you can see in this picture.

On the way I walked over a long bridge that looked down into the bay and noticed this strange little bird in the distance.

Lousy photo (a 100% crop) but it shows an Ancient Murrelet, a Hakodate tick and #193 on the local list......

A couple of weeks ago I saw lots and lots of Black Legged Kittiwakes at Yakumo. Whilst I was watching them I spoke to 2 birders from the Hakodate branch of Hokkaido University. Kura and Kim. They said they hoped to see a Red Legged Kittiwake (much rarer) amongst all the Black Leggeds. And see some they did as you will see if you click on the links. They must have been blown in by the big storm last Sunday. The birds in question were in Sawara which is fairly near Hakodate (I often go there). From their blogs I note the Rooks/Daurian Jackdaws have returned too.........and in the local paper I noticed  a Japanese Wood Pigeon flew into someone's window in Shikabe.

Not much else around Hakodate for my good self today though. A few Wigeon, Pelagic Cormorant, lots of Dusky Thrush. earlier on in the week saw the usual birds in Goryokaku Park and the local river. Here are some more BIF shots that show the 7D can do it in crappy dull grey snowy weather too...........

Thierry Henri, what a cheating tosser. I didn't watch the game but I've seen the incident on youtube many times now.

I think of 2 times England suffered from extremely  bad refereeing/cheating in my time following football since the late 70's. Maradonna's hand of god of course but also that game in Holland in 1993. The 'do I not like that' game when Koeman scored after he should have been sent off for a penalty that wasn't even given either. It meant we didn't go the 1994 World Cup Finals in the USA which still rankles. Still, we won our only World Cup thanks to a dodgy linesman so I'll shut up there. Glad I'm not an Irish fan though.

Off to Yakumo for a couple of days at the weekend, hope the eagles have arrived and they skowly flap around just like those Great Egrets and Grey Herons.

Rain Rain Rain

It's been raining a lot the last few days. Not much birding although I did relocate the Taiga Flycatcher (no pictures worth posting though). There were a few Scaup in the harbour at Kamiso at least........

Lots of other common ducks around (especially Wigeon) and there were also several Glaucous Winged Gull in the gull flocks on the beach.

The Scaup were mainly female or immature birds........

The Brent Geese haven't arrived in Hakodate yet but the Harlequin Ducks have. And I still can't get a decent shot of one.

We took a trip out to Onuma in the afternoon before the rain got really heavy, not much here either. The tame Nuthatches and Tits that have provided staple photo opps over the last 3 winters haven't come to the ad hoc forest feeding log yet. There were about 8 individuals covering 3 different species, were are they? Did they find somewhere better? Has the autumn been so mild there's still loads of food in the forest for them to find? Have they died this summer and the new generation hasn't 'learned' about the free sunflower seeds available? Who knows?

The only thing of interest was this Fox and even that wasn't as tame as usual........

Here are a couple of shots taken with my compact to finish off with............

This is the port where the Scaup were and here is the usual Onuma view......

Slow week but some crappy pics of a semi-rarity

The 7D continues to be an excellent BIF camera, this was one of 2 great Egrets on the local river and all 3 shots were from the same rapid burst.

Really crappy weather this week, grey rainy days. Like Preston in autumn in fact.

The Egrets were one of 3 heron species on the river and these shots were taken on particularly overcast days.

More trees have been cut down by the river, I have no idea why. Like I say I'm sure it's just the City Hall spending tax ¥en. I really really hope it doesn't mean they're going to 'improve' the river. As anyone who has spent time in Japan will attest the locals just love concrete (or at least those locals who are in charge of government budgets do).

The bulk of the trees and bushes near my flat that sheltered many many migrants over the last few years are now gone forever. In some (as yet) unmolested bushes further downstream I  noticed this unusual looking small bird. Its black tail and white outer tail markings showed it was something a little different.........

Lousy pictures but they show a female Red-breasted Flycatcher, a lifer for me and #192 (I think) on my Hakodate list. Both it and this Red Flanked Bluetail were being mercilessly bullied by the male Daurian Redstart that sets up territory here in the winter.

The first Hawfinch of the winter have returned. In Goryokaku Park exactly the same birds were present as last week. 3 Coot plus the male Pochard and young Temincks Cormorant.

The 2 Little Grebe had been joined by a third individual. This is a species I'm struggling to take a decent photo of, they are so shy, Here is a not really very good one to be going on with.

All the sport on TV is on really late tonight. England's meaningless reserve team against Brazil is on about 2am (or 2.30am?), The rugby is on after midnight too and the Ireland v France play-off, the one really tasty game this weekend,  is on at about 4am or something. I have to get up early to teach a friend's class tomorrow so it looks like I'll miss them all..........