A weekend away

The Japanese Green Pigeon pics are slowly getting better.

A picture of me looking very summery.

We just got back from a brief break up near Lake Toya. The day we drove up there was very dark and wet, we stopped at Shizukari and most of the summer stuff was still fairly active and showing well and there were families of Stonechats everywhere.

The Black Browed Reed Warblers were still singing.

Grey Herons seemed to be in every ricefield.

3 species of Cuckoo were singing but as you can see it was really dark. We headed over to Toya and tried to kill time in the rain before check-in time. I only had my 100-400 handy most of the time, here's a view of a famous volacno.

Toya hosted the G8 summit a couple of years ago so the cheap guesthouse we stayed in had free wireless internet and multilingual signs everywhere (no doubt it had been full of foreign journalists). 

I started drinking at 3pm and was asleep after dinner at 9pm.........

There weren't any birds around though, just a few common things here and there: Russett Sparrow, Goosander, Mute Swan etc.

The weather was slightly better the second day, we spent the morning near Niseko. It was too cloudy for any mountain shots, here's a rural view also with the 100-400.

On the way home we checked the beach in Shikabe for Japanese Green Pigeon again.

A brief period of sunshine co-incided with some fairly close encounters...........

But most of the time saw grey skies and distant views, the BIF shots weren't so good today, in fact they were awful...........

They don't mind getting wet though.

The noisy construction work continues. I got up in the small hours to watch the World Cup final (not a great game unless you're a fan of yellow cards) and any chance of sleeping in late after I returned to bed around 6am was scuppered by the sounds of banging, sawing and drilling which began at 7.45am just outside my window.

Not a vintage World Cup. I missed the Ghana/Uruguay game (which seemed to be the only real 'classic') as it was on too late (or too early depending on your point of view) so I guess the best game for me would have been Italy losing against Slovakia. Otherwise a lot of fairly muted games, spoiled by poor finishing and the ball.

What would have happened if Lampard's goal had counted? Or if Green hadn't dropped the ball in the back of the net? Somehow I  still very much doubt I would have been getting up to watch England in the final last night.

I'm off to fantasize about what I'd like to do (and who I'd like to do it to) with that pneumatic drill that has been going for the last couple of hours.

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Toya

Taken and uploaded from the crappy camera on my cellphone. We are on one of our infrequent trips out of town.

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

July 5th 2009.


Cattle Egret in summer plumage just outside Kamiso. 


Not a great photo but a nice find, this one (like most egrets) is fairly scarce in Hokkaido. I've seen many of these around the world but this was only my second in Hokkaido..........although I saw my third yesterday near Onuma. This has been the only one in summer colours. I've seen this species in great numbers all over the world but it seems kind of exotic here in Hokkaido.


I use these 'on this day' posts to pad out my blog a bit, to recycle older photos and also steer a few people to my 2 photo sites. I thought I'd do a few posts in advance for July and publish them later so I looked through old photos etc and there basically is nothing else of much interest from the last 4 Julys.................just goes to show what a quiet month it is in this part of the world


I'm looking forward to autumn already.

Japanese Green Pigeon

We returned to the beach where we'd seen the Japanese Green Pigeon last week and I fired off lots and lots of shots.

The weather was lousy with mist and drizzle but in the late afternoon the sun came out for a brief time and that was when I could take some OK shots.

I find BIF shots of fast flying birds against a white sky very tricky, most of the earlier shots were underexposed and full of noise. Like this one...............

The beach was full of loose rocks and proved tricky to walk on, it also stank of rotting something or other and was full of horribly creepy looking bugs running around.

The Pigeons breed in the forested uplands but come to the shore to drink seawater, apparently to aid digestion..............

I didn't get many shots on the ground............

As you can see they are a quite stunning bird. Shame they are so jumpy.................

They'll be around for another couple of months, time to brush up on my BIF techniques.

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Not much else around, the usual birds in the ricefields and Onuma but nothing posing for the camera. Well that's not strictly true. My wife asked me to take a snap of a cow and on looking at the image on my computer I was somewhat surprised to see a Cattle Egret standing under the udder.......................

I watched 'Sex and Drugs and Rock and Roll' last week, the movie based on the life of Ian Dury. Not bad actually, I'm now awaiting '4 Lions' with some anticipation....................

Slow time is here

Well July is here. July is (and I'm sure this is true for most birders in temperate latitudes in the northern hemisphere) the quietest month of the year birding wise in south Hokkaido.

Not much to report from Hakodate, the Red Cheeked Starlings were still in a feeding frenzy this afternoon. It looks like this youngster has cherry stains around its mouth.............

Hot and sticky again today, at night its very pleasant though. Soon I'll crack open a beer and watch Holland vs Brazil (and try to forget about last Sunday's game)..............

The common residents plus Japanese Bush Warbler, Black Faced Bunting, Asian House Martin and Bullheaded Shrike were all that are around now. The Oriental Reed Warblers are still singing, here's one on TV.

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Slow time approaching.........

A female Red Cheeked Starling in the bushes along the river this afternoon. The young have left the nests and large noisy groups of them were everywhere.

I have no idea where they find these cherries, someone's garden is being pilfered I guess.

I didn't get any decent shots of juveniles, they were all hidden in the undergrowth. The adults were more co-operative however.

So now the slow time is approaching.  Most birds will stop singing soon and concentrate on raising their young. From about the second week in July there won't be much to see or photograph until the waders start to pass through in mid August. A Night Heron or two on the river perhaps but that's about all....................

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Well F****** Hell

Excuse my filthy language and cusswords.

Just watched England get thrashed 4-1. Oh dear. What a f***ing downer. 

Still, FWIW I got some nice Black Browed Reed Warbler shots today.

Actually I'm almost glad it was 4-1 or else we'd be debating Lampard's 'goal' for years to come.

I swore a lot during the came and called Klose a 'weasel faced German c**t' after the first goal, that had my wife scratching her head.

Until Germany's 3rd goal I thought we still had a good chance although I fully admit Germany looked a different class for about 75% of the game.

This pic was with a 1.4 T/C.

And here's a video I took, also with the 1.4 T/C.

Why is football always so disappointing?

Maybe I should stop caring about such trivial nonsense. I promise football will not be mentioned on this blog for a long long time.

I found a place where Japanese Green Pigeons come down to drink seawater.

I will return here again to get a decent shot of what is quite a stunning bird.

The lotus are out at Onuma, here's a photo of one I played around with in Photoshop.

It was really hot today, summer has arrived.

So think of me going to bed drunk and bitterly disappointed and sure to be woken up by construction work at 8am tomorrow. 

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The Sound of Summer

The sound of a Hokkaido summer.

No it's not that Black Faced Bunting above. It's this, right outside my apartment for 10 hours a day.

I think I'd prefer to live next door to a vuvuzela testing facility, it'd be more peaceful.

Japanese construction workers head my list of least favourite people at the moment.

There's an election next month so that means morons will drive around the neighborhood blasting out propaganda soon too. Nice. Sometimes I question why I live here.

It was very warm today and I headed out to escape the racket. Not much around to be honest. the most noticeable species was Red Cheeked Starling. The young have left the nest and small family groups of them are everywhere..................

This male seemed to have found a cherry tree somewhere.......

So England made it to the 2nd Round, I had my doubts but thought they looked OK against the might of Slovenia. At least our potential route to the final (!) involves two 11pm kick offs....................

So think of me on Sunday, on the other side of the world. slightly drunk and screaming impotently at a TV. And say a prayer or two for England's wobbly progress to continue.

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On this day (June 25th)....................

June 25th 2008.

Little Ringed Plover at Kikonai. This is a common summer visitor and can be seen in suitable habitat across the whole of south Hokkaido: it and Common Sandpiper are pretty much the only locally breeding waders in these here parts...........