A quiet run up to Christmas

A big influx of Dusky Thrush this last week, with them were a few Hawfinch and a pair of Bullfinch, something I don't usually see until the early spring.

Lat winter I saw a Fieldfare with the Duskys and this week I was hoping to find a few Waxwing perhaps but nothing doing there. Otherwise only common stuff in town........

This female Sparrowhawk flew over during a rare 10 minutes with blue sky..........

We went to Onuma yesterday, the usual suspects posed nicely for photos.

Just in case you stumbled across this blog and are impressed by the above photos I'll show you this one to shatter your illusions.

Most interesting photo of the day was this.

A White Tailed Eagle and lots of crows eating a dead frozen Red Fox at Onuma. I tried to get closer for a better shot but my foot went through the ice................I didn't want to end up like the fox.

So Christmas Eve. Here I am on my own drinking mulled wine and beer (the wife is out at some office party or other). I may switch on one of the christmas stations on itunes or listen to the BBC (Radio 2 I suppose these days?) to find some seasonal tunes. I can't get that s**t-awful Shakin' Stevens song out of my head ('Merry Christmas Everyone' I think it's called). I hope they don't play that particular one.  Damn. Maybe they'll play Slade though. On that rather sad note.............

Happy Christmas to the regular readers of this blog. If you're lonely or down just think about what kind of christmas that fox's family is going to have.................

By the way I've had to enable comment moderation after getting spammed by folk suggesting I buy all kinds of products for sexual dysfunctions and the like.

2009 winding down

Nuthatch and Marsh Tit at Onuma this afternoon. S***loads of snow this last few days and Onuma has transformed into a white winter wonderland (I've been listening to to too many christmas songs obviously). The Whooper Swans were present and joined by a few common duck species.......

5 species of tit, 3 species of Woodpecker, White Tailed Eagle and Yellow Throated Bunting were the main birds of interest at Onuma. Oh and Nuthatches of course.

This was taken with a 100mm macro lens and only slightly cropped. This gives you an idea how tame these are............

Pretty sharp. You can even see my reflection in its eye when zoomed in full size.............

This one is from a 90mm macro lens (we have 2) and is cropped but not heavily.

I couldn't get as close to the Marsh Tits and there were no Varied Tits nearby either...........

Here are a couple of crappy shots to give a wintry atmosphere............

Liverpool go from bad to worse. England look like they're going to get a draw in the 1st Test.........hope I didn't speak too soon there.

Winter arrives finally

Well winter finally hit and outside it's f****** freezing and there's loads of snow and ice. The Brambling was a new arrival as was the Glaucous Winged Gull but otherwise it's been a pretty low key week. A Coot, 5 Brent Geese, some Wigeon and Scaup were in the harbour with the Gull. Not much showing so here's some of the common stuff.

Like Tree Sparrows. These are pretty scarce in the UK these days (I can't even remember the last one I saw there) but they are the common urban sparrow of east Asia. I tend to ignore them but there really wasn't much to photograph this week...........

Birds and snow also go well together...........

Plumbing the depths a bit here, here's a Common Teal on the local river.

The Glaucous Winged Gull at least did something entertaining.

This sign states the obvious somewhat.

I'm watching the 1st Test in South Africa on and off, England are struggling a bit. Liverpool's 2nd half showing against Arsenal was as bad as I can remember them playing for a while. Gerard has turned into a petulant brat, Torres doesn't look fit and let's face it half the team aren't actually that good. Still they managed to hang on for a victory against Wigan the other night (can't believe I just typed that!).

A shameless plug

These are the photos I chose for my 2010 calendar which you can check out via the links on the right or at this link here:  My 2010 Calendars

2009 best of #2

Some of my fave shots from the second half of 2009.....................

All shots from south Hokkaido and the Canon 100-400L with either the 400D or 7D.



Black Browed Reed Warbler at Ono in July.



Black Crowned Night Heron in Hakodate in July.

And here are some Red Necked Stints from August and September. All of them are at Kamiso. I took a lot of shots of this species this year.........











The Stints weren't the only waders posing for the camera........



Great Knot at Kamiso in August.



Bar Tailed Godwit also at Kamiso in September.

My new 7D in October meant lots of BIF shots. This Night Heron was pretty much the first shot I managed with my new camera.



And Great Egrets too in November..........



The Harlequin Ducks and Brent Geese, subject of many recent posts, were as photogenic as ever.





The Nuthatches and Varied Tits still look great this winter.........





The eagles appeared in good numbers at Yakumo, as of now I haven't gotten any really nice shots this winter. Hopefully as winter progresses they'll get a bit tamer.



It's snowing outside and has been for a couple of days now, the snow plows were out in force last night too. Looks like winter 2009/10 has finally started.