2009 best of #1

Forgive my vanity, here are some of my fave shots from the first part of the year.


All shots taken in southwest Hokkaido with the Canon 400D and 100-400L.







Stellers Sea Eagle at Yakumo in January.





White Tailed Eagle in Yakumo in January.





Long Tailed Duck at Oshamanbe in January.





Spectacled Guilemot in Hakodate in January.





Hawfinch at Onuma in February.





Waxwing in Hakodate in February.





Common Crossbill in Hakodate in February.





Ural Owl in Onuma in February.





Varied Tit at Onuma in February.





Common Crossbill in Hakodate in March.





Brent Geese in Hakodate in March.








Yet more Common Crossbills in Hakodate in March.





Black Necked Grebes at Shikabe in April.

Nuthatch at Onuma in April.

Black Woodpecker at Onuma in April.

Grey Headed Woodpecker at Onuma in April.

Common Crossbill in Hakodate in April.

Siberian Stonechat in Ono in June.





Red Cheeked Starling in Hakodate in June.





Bullheaded Shrike in Hakodate in June.





Black Browed Reed Warbler in Yakumo in June.

Gloomy kind of day

An adult White Tailed Eagle at Yakumo this afternoon.

Grey gloomy weather today but still, amazingly, almost no snow on the ground even at Yakumo. There were lots of eagles today, I estimate about 100. Most were in 2 groups and most of each group were very skittish and flighty. It was an impressive sight to see 50 or more individuals take flight, barking like dogs. A shame they didn't fly closer to my camera though...........

Not much else around at Yakumo, a few Great Egrets, the usual Brown Dippers, common wildfowl and gulls. We were able to explore several places that are usually inaccessible at this time of the year due to deep snow. My wife was freaking out, she was worried about bears........

No bears. Only eagles.

We headed back to Onuma and the Ural Owl was in one of its winter holes.

This was a crappy insurance shot, by the time I'd got the tripod set up it had either gone deep inside the tree or flown off.......

The usual stuff was around but it was to dark for decent photos........

We later heard of a suicide that had happened very close to the the place where we take the Nuthatch pictures. The body was found hanging from a tree in the middle of last week and had apparently been there 2 or 3 days. We were there last Sunday, could they have done it then? Did we see him/her? If we had could we have done anything? A gloomy thought to end a rather gloomy Sunday.

I'll stay up to watch the Liverpool v Arsenal game. Last night's results show the season may not quite be as over and done with as I'd thought.........

Hope it starts snowing soon. The lake at Onuma hasn't even frozen yet. Once the snow hits different birds appear plus the whiteness is often good for photography, lots of reflected light.

Yellow Throated Bunting

One of a group of several Yellow Throated Bunting in the local park yesterday. This is a female, indeed all these photos are, the brightly coloured males were much shyer........

Not much else around, the moat had frozen so no waterfowl. There were a few Hawfinch but not much else...........

I got approached by someone asking to use my photos on wikipedia, you can see them on this page, Asian House Martin.

Nothing else of much interest, here's another Brent Goose video from the other day.

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?