Moving swiftly on.................

A Pacific Swift up near Oshamanbe this afternoon. There were lots of swifts and hirundines flying south and I tried photographing swifts semi-seriously for the first time.

It was hard.

Some heavy cropping going on here.

In amongst the Pacific Swifts were smaller numbers of White Throated Needletails.

We were at Oshamanbe to check out the waders.

The bird on the left is a Red Knot, the one on the right is the very common Grey Tailed Tattler. Red Knot is a fairly scarce species in Japan and this is a new addition to my Japanese list.

There were other wader species around too; Mongolian Plover, Whimbrel, Sanderling, Greenshank, Common Sandpiper and Ruddy Turnstone. Here's a photo of the latter.

And of course the inevitable Red Necked Stints, they were everywhere in small skittish flocks.

This individual appeared to be colour ringed.

Other species today included the first Glaucous Winged Gull of 'winter', Great Egret, Japanese Green Pigeon, Night Heron, Sand Martin, Eastern Marsh Harrier and this young Peregrine.

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Still hot, when will it end?

No footy on tonight. How boring................

Hottest ever......

Well it's officially the hottest summer in Japan since records began. It was too hot for any birding the last few days plus on my only day off it rained all day.

This morning I got up early to watch England beat Bulgaria 4-0 (!) and took advantage of the fact I was up early to go to Kamiiso before the temperature started rising.

We just missed this Osprey diving and catching a fish. I did well to jump out of the car, get my camera and get any shots at all actually. This one could have been a real keeper if it been in focus.............

Dunno what kind of fish it was................

Not much else about, several Common Sandpiper, lots of Night Heron still, a lone Greenshank and 5 or 6 Red Necked Stint on the beach.

Truth be told I'm tired of the hot weather but it's set to continue for a while apparently. At least when we go out in the car it has aircon.............

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More Waders #3

A Greenshank on the beach at Kamiiso this morning. It was uncomfortably hot again today, I got heat rash and sunburn and gave up around midday..............it's now late evening and there is a spectacular thunderstorm going on outside.

The Greenshank was the most interesting species, I don't see them so often in Hakodate (they're common elsewhere near here, especially Yakumo).

I was mostly shooting into the sun so not a vintage day for pictures.

There was a group of 3 Ruddy Turnstones pecking around some weird green thing on the beach.

The 5 Terek Sandpiper were still around and still very shy, the Red Necked Stint flock fell from 21 yesterday to only 11 today. Lots of Night Herons and also the inevitable Ospreys........

So that should be about that for August, I can't recall a hotter month in the 10 summers I've been in Hokkaido. Although the storm has cooled things down a bit the forecast still says around 30 degrees tomorrow...................roll on autumn.

Still, this hot as hell weather means I feel less guilty cracking open a cold beer in the evening. In fact I think I'll go the fridge right now.

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More Waders #2

A possible Greater Sand Plover on the beach at Kamiiso yesterday afternoon. I'd assumed it was the same Lesser Sand Plover from the day before but thanks to Gallicissa for pointing out my possible error. A lifer, possibly. And looking closely at the pics they look different............

This is/was being debated over at birdforum. Thanks to others who added comments to this post too.The consensus however seems to be it another Lesser Sand Plover so no lifer alas.

Wader season 2010 continues..............

It was pretty tame and pretty much ignored me as it chased around lots of bugs on the beach............

Lots of very similar shots as you can see..........

Very hot and humid still............

Other species of wader were around including the inevitable Red Necked Stints.

Tomoyuki managed to see a Spoon Billed Sandpiper with Red Necked Stints up near Sapporo. I checked the Stints today and yesterday down here but had no such luck..............all had normal shaped bills as you can see from this shot.

Other shorebirds included a very wary flock of 5 Terek Sandpiper, several Common Sandpiper, a couple of Little Ringed Plover and a flock of 20 or so unidentified flyovers (Bar Tailed Godwit probably but I'm not sure).

Here's another video I took yesterday, the Stints were on a tripod and the Plover was handheld.

Night Herons and Ospreys were all present and correct.

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Just listening to the end of the Test Match, can we ever truly trust a result with Pakistan involved again?