Another morning with the Brents

On a beautifully clear and mild morning I headed down to the dock area yet again to check the Brent Geese and Harlequin Ducks. The latter were not co-operative for photos but the former certainly were and hung around in an area with the light behind me instead of behind them.

The same group of 5 were present but were joined by another 3 individuals, cousins perhaps?

Much better pics than the last 2 visits that's for sure.

Not much else around, here's a Pelagic Cormorant flying off before I could get a shot.

A few other common ducks and that's about it. In the local park the Pochard was still there as well as a flock of Hawfinches and this tame Dusky Thrush.

Weird photo of the day is this.

Some kind of bottom feeding inedible shark? The local fisherman just threw them away............in Japan the eat practically anything that comes from the sea so these must taste really bad.

3200

Lousy weather at the weekend. We managed a short visit to Onuma but it was so dark I had to up the ISO on my camera to 3200. My old camera only went up to 1600 (and I never used it so high because of the lousy quality). These Varied Tits didn't turn out so bad (although the full sized unprocessed RAW images looked pretty brutal). Lens wide open and most of them with flash.

This Nuthatch was only at ISO 1600.

The Ural Owl was back in its hole (see the pic in the banner) but flew off as I was setting up the tripod (it was very late and very dark). This Fox was sniffing around nearby.........

Not much around, a few Great Egret here and there, Buzzard, Kestrel, the usual common ducks and gulls. This young Night Heron was skulking by the river last week.

Friday saw me back near Hakodate Dock with the Brent Geese and Harlequin Ducks. No problems with lack of light here, in fact it was perhaps too bright (and the light was directly behind the Geese most of the time which resulted in lots of shots with messed up exposure).

The Harlequins weren't quite as tame as last time but were still reasonably close. It was a bit too cold to sit on the rocks for long this time though, I gave up after a few minutes.......

The World Cup draw was pretty kind to England but I'm already fretting about the way everyone seems to be regarding progress to the knockout stages as a given. I hope England do well though, looks like Liverpool aren't going to provide much happiness in the 2009/10 seasson.

There seems to be a bug with blogger, if you click on some images you'll find the odd one downloads to your computer. It appears to be pretty random but it's a little annoying.

I designed and ordered some calendars but there have been big problems with international shipping. How can it take SIX weeks (and counting) for 2 calendars to arrive from the US to Japan? When I contacted the company they said I should have chosen expedited shipping. Cost of postage of one calendar with economy shipping is about $10. With expedited shipping that jumps to an batsh*t insane S118. If you live in Europe/US/Australia it's not so bad cost-wise but to Asia? Bad luck.

Still snowing outside, has winter finally started?

More arrivals

I took a walk down to the dock area this morning to see if the Brent Geese had arrived.

They had. A group of 5. The Harlequin Ducks were posing nicely again, it was mild enough for me to sit on some rocks and wait for them to swim past.

I think I'm getting the hang of this 7D, it needs a lot more post processing and sharpening than my older camera.

The Brent Geese were pretty tame too. I guess this is a family with mum, dad and 3 kids?

The light was right behind them which made getting a decent shot a little tough.

They'll bea round until the end of March so I'll have plenty of photo opps...........

Not much else around except for the usual stuff. Here's a Dusky Thrush near my flat.

I just watched the end of Sons Of Anarchy Season 2. Wow, talk about a lot of cliffhangers..............

I downloaded lots of stuff by one on my former favourite bands, the Butthole Surfers. Actually I already have lots of it on CD and vinyl but it's back in England somewhere. I got into them in the late 80's, 2 of my flatmates at college were big fans. I saw them in 1989 at the Subterrania in Ladbroke Grove. It was strange listening to them again.

Back in my early 20's I listened to them on my headphones when I was off my head and high as a kite. It's been a long long time since I tried any intoxicants not available in Japanese convenience stores so I have to try and recapture that frame of mind. It's 2am in my smoky spartan bedroom in my crappy flat in Finsbury Park, I have to show my face at work at tomorrow,  god I hate that job, can't wait until Satuday night when we'll go out in Camden, my long hair has only just dried, I looked cool as f**k in my new leather coat that I bought this afternoon on that shop round the corner near the Holloway Road, I've had a few beers before I crawled into bed, a few joints too and hey I think I'll roll another and wow that music is amazing man and one day I'm gonna move to Texas and even though this is the 500th time I've listened to this song it still blows my mind.............

I can't do it. I'm 41 years old. Sorry. Still, some of their more mainstream rock stuff that I didn't care for much back in the day sounds pretty good now.

Hope England can avoid a group of death. Switzerland, Algeria and New Zealand would do very nice thank you Mr Blatter.

A day with some eagles

Another Sunday at Yakumo with the Stellers Sea and White Tailed Eagles................

One advantage of the very mild weather this November is that it is possible to walk across fields down to the river at Yakumo and get closer to the eagles. usually it's knee or hip high in snow but this weekend there was absolutely no snow whatsoever.

There were a lot of eagles today, even in this shot I can count about 40.

There were several Crested Kingfisher around too and on the way we saw some large crow flocks which included Rook and Daurian Jackdaw. The day belonged to the eagles however...........

Almost all the shots are in the sky. Here is one adult White Tailed Eagle perched, it is strange not to have a white icy background..........

An all white background has the advantage of faster shutter speeds, a lot of my BIF shots today suffered in the autumnal hues.

I have found January to be the best time for eagle shots. The bad weather means they sit in the trees more and hunger drives them down to the river to feed. In November they just fly around a lot high in the sky..........some fairly heavy cropping going on with most of these shots.

I naturally tend to go for the above adult Stellers but not always. Here is an immature White Tailed.

And here is an immature Stellers. Note the big yellow bill............

As the light began to fade the eagles were in their roosting positions. Like I said these are usually in fairly inaccessible spots due to the deep snow but this time I could at least get closer. In the fading light the pics weren't so great though.......

So Liverpool are on the road to recovery, hell they will probably even catch Arsenal and finish 3rd.

I watched 'Zombieland' which was great for 20 or so minutes but fizzled out very quickly and is nowhere near as funny as 'Shaun of the Dead'.

A quiet week in November

A quiet week just went by, for various reasons I couldn't get out much...........

The 3 species of Heron (including the above Great Egret) were on the local river and a couple of days ago I relocated the Red Breasted Flycatcher. Not great shots (the camera settings were intended for large airborne Herons against bright skies not little skulkers in the bushes) but here we are.......

We'd heard reports of a Great Grey Shrike nearby and we went to look for it this afternoon. Nothing doing (and no Rooks or Daurian Jackdaws either) but we did see this male Merlin. This was the only shot I could fire off before it disappeared...........

There were loads of Salmon in the river in Ono. And hundreds of dead ones in the fields next to the river too, presumably a result of last week's heavy rains. Sadly no eagles feeding on them though........

A dull old week not helped by Liverpool plunging out of the Champions League.

Nothing interesting to say, I'll sign off for now.........