Asian House Martin

An Asian House Martin collecting nestbuilding materials on the river near my apartment yesterday.

I took this handheld video. Click on 'vimeo' for the HD version.

Housebuilding of another kind is currently driving me nuts, the construction noise outside my living room window as I type is deafening.

Some birds have already bred, baby ducks and crows are all over the place and a family of Oriental Greenfinches landed near the martins.

I've seen an adult Night Heron the last couple of days, hopefully there will be some young ones to photograph soon. Lots of Red Cheeked Starling activity in the centre of the bushes, again hopefully the young will be out and about on a few days too.

The Oriental Reed Warblers are still singing their hearts out.

I did manage to catch this one in a slightly different pose..............

So only one day to go until the World Cup begins...............the torture of watching England is just over 48 hours away..........

Thanks for clicking on this link.

Black Browed Reed Warblers

A Black Browed Reed Warbler, one of many at Shizukari Wetlands yesterday afternoon.

Here's a video of one singing.

Unfortunately f**kwit here forgot to switch the IS back on after taking the video and some of the pics suffered as a result...............

Cuter and perkier than the large and noisy Oriental Reed Warblers this species is my fave bird of summer.

Lots of Cuckoos around today, 3 species in all. Little Cuckoo, Common Cuckoo and Oriental Cuckoo. This crappy record shot is of the latter, they all look the same but their songs are totally different. I ID'ed it by call obviously.

This species apparently favours the nests of phylloscopus warblers. the Common Cuckoo prefers Reed Warblers and the Little Cuckoo goes for Bush warblers........

The wetlands (which actually seem to be bone dry) near Oshamanbe and the ricefields outside Hakoadte were full of summer birds. Aforementioned Cuckoos and Reed Warblers, Black faced and Reed Buntings, Lathams Snipe, Siberian Stonchat, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Bulheaded Shrike and Grays Grasshopper Warbler were everywhere.

One especially common one in summer is Chestnut Eared Bunting.

It's gotten pretty warm now and I got my first sunburn of the year yesterday...............I reckon this sumer will be a hot one, something we haven't had in south Hokkaido for a while.

Only 4 days to go to the World Cup.........I'm ashamed to see that'll blot out everything for the next 4 or so weeks. I wish it could blot out the sound of the construction outside my window though............

Thanks for clicking this link.

On this day (June 5th)....................

June 6th 2007.



Ruddy Kingfisher at Onuma. For 2 years a pair of Ruddy Kingfishers nested close to the road around the edge of Onuma. The scrum of photographers sporting $000's worth of equipment had to be seen to be believed, they must have been the most photographed birds in Hokkaido those 2 summers. They must have chosen another site in 2009 though, well away from prying lenses.


I digiscoped this shot, with an ancient 4MP Nikon compact camera attached to a Pentax 65mm scope. I felt a bit embarrassed next to all those huge white lenses................but I know said lenses cost more than the car we recently bought.

Eleven

I had some time to kill today so I had a walk down the river to confirm how many Oriental Reed Warblers there were.

There were 11 singing males. Various bridges divide the river neatly into territories.

There aren't any migrants about now, just the breeders. The most interesting bird of the day was some kind of Cuckoo which emerged from the bushes to the sounds of an angry Warbler, guess they'll be having a single big ungrateful lump as their family this year..........

A single pair of Chestnut Eared Bunting is the on the same patch of wasteland they have occupied the last few years, they are impossible to approach though. Other summer regulars included Black Faced Bunting, White Wagtail, Bullheaded Shrike and Red Cheeked Starling. The first Spot Billed Duckings were around a few days ago too..........these suffer a very high mortality rate as in summer the river swells dramatically after any rains. Hope it's a dry summer for their sakes..........

Bad news of the week is that there is going to be another f**king construction project right next to our apartment for the second summer running. So those nights I stay up to 5.30 am watching the World Cup and relying on a lie-in will be scuppered by the sounds of middle aged men hammering, sawing and drilling outside my window.

I hope England do well in the World Cup because it doesn't look like Liverpool will be doing much for the next few seasons. I haven't quite decided how to approach the World Cup this time as an England 'fan' but I'm veering between realist and pessimist. 2006 knocked any trace of optimist out of me I'm afraid.

I'm listening to Test Match Special at the moment, one of my fave things of any summer.

Thanks for clicking this link.

Summer staples

Some great weather this week most of which has been spent indoors working...............

Outside I've been chasing 2 of the local summer staples. One of these being Oriental Reed Warblers which are very common summer visitors and about a dozen males set up territories in the bushes along the local rivers. They are pretty shy and difficult to approach. They usually sing from the tops of bushes/trees but as soon as you even glance at them down they drop into the long grass..........

Their loud song is one of the most evocative sounds of a Hokkaido summer. Not exactly beautiful but they certainly get noticed.

Another summer staple is the Red Cheeked Starling, here is a male and female.

The exact same birds I photographed a couple of weeks ago in the cherry blossoms. They aren't as approachable as before and were busy nestbuilding in the wall of the rampart I was standing on when I took these pics.

I took a brief video too............

This species is also very common in Hakodate but is pretty much restricted to northern Japan in summer, it's almost a Japanese endemic (although it winters in the Philippines).

I see the Japanese PM resigned today. Like the arrival of the above 2 species this seems to be an annual occurrence, I make that 4 in 4 years. Hatoyama, Aso, Fukuda and some other nameless money grabbing oyaji in a suit whose name escapes me for now.

Walcott missed the cut, thanks for reading my blog Fabio.

The last time I watched England in England play in a World Cup was 20 years ago. Italia '90. I was finishing university at the time, it was a golden summer. 20 years ago. OMG. Not a vintage World Cup by any means but I loved it and for an England fan who wasn't even alive in 1966 this was as good as it would get. I can't believe this was 20 years ago. Pavarotti, Gazza's tears, Platt's goal against Belgium. That awful game against Ireland. Peter Purves advertising some power company during every break.

Actually this summer has quite a few anniversary landmarks. 30 years ago I started secondary school, 25 years ago I finished said school, 20 years ago I graduated from university..............where did those years go?

Thanks for clicking this link.

Not happening

A roadside Skylark from yesterday. 

After a whole week of rain and mist the weather has suddenly improved.

Yesterday we went to Yakumo and Oshamanbe. There were lots of birds around but nothing, just nothing was posing for the camera. It just wasn't happening at all photo-wise. Don't know why but it was just one of those days.

The scrub and wetland areas had all the usual birds including the first singing Grays Grasshopper Warblers of the year, lots of Oriental and Common Cuckoos, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Reed and Chestnut Eared Buntings, Wryneck, Lathams Snipe etc......

Not so many Black Browed Reed Warblers yet. This is one of my favourite summer visitors but near Hakodate their usual haunts have all suffered from the curse of the grass-cutters (Hakodate City's usual waste of tax revenues by throwing money at unnecessary projects to keep unemployable men occupied). None at Yakumo either but there were a few singing at Oshamanbe, this poor shot being the best of a bad bunch.

I have managed some OK shots of this species before but not of Chestnut Eared Buntings which seem to hate me and my camera.

Lots of waders around today: Bar Tailed Godwit, Whimbrel, Grey Tailed Tattler, sumer plumage Red Necked Stints, Mongolian Plovers and Sanderling. None close enough for a photo though. At Yakumo we watched the Heronry from the bridge. I took some video but the quality wasn't so hot due to the traffic noise, obstructed views and distance. I was using a 1.4 teleconverter which at least turned out handy for this shot, a pair of Falcated Duck.

I saw a very late Dusky Thrush today and another late Daurian Redstart last week and several Asian Brown Flycatcher, otherwise the flow of migrants has dried up in town.

Here are a couple of views from Onuma. One taken with a 100-400 and the other with my crappy old 18-55 kit lens. Guess which one is which.

I watched England triumph over Japan 2-1 last night. 2 very well taken goals, bodes well for South Africa. I can relax now in the certainty that our talented boys are in great form and the quality will just flow and flow.

Why is Walcott so bad? Why does Heskey always miss? Why will both probably not only be on the plane to South Africa but also possibly in our starting X1 in the first game? Why? Why?

Thanks for clicking this link.

Hope the weather stays fine this week...........

On this day (May 29th)....................

May 29th 2008.


Male Siberian Rubythroat at Monbetsu in north Hokkaido.


We'd actually taken a wrong turn which resulted in a huge huge detour (and a huge huge row in the car too I might add) but when we hit the coast we found a small car park with this individual singing merrily away.


This species is common on autumn passage in Hakodate but is usually very skulking. In north and east Hokkaido it is a common summer visitor.

On this day (May 28th)...................

May 28th 2007.

Peregrine Falcon at Kiritappu in east Hokkaido. Not a bird I often photograph as they tend to fly very fast overhead and disappear before I can get my camera ready.

This one had just killed a White Wagtail and was actually fairly close. It's cropped but was only shot at 133mm meaning that it is reasonably sharp even though it was taken with my old ultra cheap (non APO) Sigma 70-300.

Kiritappu is a cool place. We didn't see the Tufted Puffins (which I hear is very difficult now anyway) but we did see a singing male Siberian Rubythroat, several White Tailed Eagle  and lots of stuff in the bay including a small flock of Falcated Teal.

On this day (May 27th)....................

May 27th 2007.

Red Necked Stints at Mukawa.

This species is a common autumn migrant but is a much scarcer in spring, at least around Hakodate it is. On this day there were thousands of them and most were in summer plumage too........

Taken with my old 400D and ultra cheap Sigma 70-300.

On this day (May 24th)....................

May 24th 2009.

Ural Owl chick at Onuma last year, one of a brood of 4 fledglings. It looks very sweet and innocent here but a few minutes later a parent brought it some kind of rodent which was then decapitated and eaten by this cute fluffy bundle of feathers.