Wintry

A bit of an influx of Waxwings into the region, they're everywhere. I've seen at least 5 separate flocks but none were approachable. Almost all seem to be Japanese Waxwings. I did manage to fire off a few shots today but it was snowing very heavily and the light was just awful.

I couldn't focus at all due to the darkness and the blizzard like conditions so I used my 'BIF' custom settings which resulted in fast shutter speeds but massively underexposed images. I brightened them up (a lot) on the computer and although blurry and grainy I quite like the results...........

The one with the yellow tip to its tail is a Bohemian Waxwing. Usually this is the commoner one but not this winter..........

A lot of snow these last few days and it brought with it a few winter birds...........and a crappy birdscape photo opp.

Part of a very skittish flock of Brambling. Other small birds in town this week have been Hawfinch, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Bullfinch, Brown Dipper as well as the usual winter stuff like Daurian Redstart and Dusky Thrush as well as resident species like Coal, Great and Varied Tit. Teal and Tufted Duck share the mostly frozen river with a couple of Grey Heron and a Peregrine was a nice flyover bird yesterday. Surprise of the week was a pair of Oriental Turtle Dove: usually they're well gone before the snow comes............

I had a very quick look at Kamiso a couple of days ago. Scaup, Goosander, Wigeon, Goldeneye and Whooper Swan were present. At Onuma there wasn't much at all except the Tits and Nuthatches.

This is the Hokkaido race of the common Eurasian Nuthatch, the same species I was seeing back in Penwortham just last week. The ones in Penwortham are a bit more colourful though.

And UK Great Tits are more colourful than the ones out here too..........

I think there were several Marsh and Willow Tits. Both species occur in Hokkaido but I always assumed Marsh were much commoner.  Most of them at Onuma seem to be Marsh Tits but to be honest I don't look too closely at all of them. Unlike Europe call is not a reliable way to ID these 2 species in east Asia. I have noticed some bullying others, I read somewhere that Marsh Tits are dominant over Willow Tits. These 2 don't seem to have such glossy caps............

Sunshine has been a rarity recently but for a few minutes the other day the skies cleared and illuminated the mountain at Onuma..............

All the dark gloomy light recently reminds me of the UK. Here are some shots from last week in Preston of the wintering Iceland Gull. It was very active but it was late in the day and very dark indeed.

A very nice bird to see, don't think I'll ever see one here although we do sometimes get the closely related Thayers Gull.

I got some very dark BIF shots on my last evening in Preston............

I can't work out how to position these small thumbnail photos...............they're not aligned, I know I know.

Hopefully the snow will relent and I can find some more Waxwings tomorrow........

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2011 underway

A Stellers Sea Eagle at Yakumo this morning.

Very wintry here, heavy heavy snow and very cold. January is always the best month for eagles and there were some close views of both species. The weather wasn't so great but there were occasional snow free interludes............

Thanks to Tomohiro for the driving today.

Most of today's keepers were of Stellers..........both old and young.

                             

There were equal numbers of White Tailed Eagles but for some reason all the shots turned out crap. Other stuff at Yakumo included Bullfinch, Brown Dipper, Rook, Daurian Jackdaw, Goosander, Japanese Wagtail, Goldeneye, Scaup, Wigeon, Whooper Swan, Long Billed Plover, Long Tailed Tit, Black Scoter, Little and Great Crested Grebes, Glaucous and Glaucous Winged Gulls and various other common winter stuff. Here's a Glaucous Winged Gull.............

We headed back to Onuma and the tame Tits and Nuthatches are surviving the cold snap..........

The regular flock of Whooper Swan arrived whilst I was away but for some reason their regular corner of the lake is not ice free and they stood around looking lost on the ice..........

We headed back to Ono to look for a Mountain Hawk Eagle my wife found yesterday but it was nowhere to be seen, from the car window I did see a Japanese Waxwing on the outskirts of Hakodate though and it seems there are plenty around so I'll try and find some this coming week.......

Man Utd scored a dodgy penalty and Gerard got a red card, don't think I'll bother watching the second half of that one.............but I'm still so happy about the cricket more Liverpool disappointments barely even register.

I'm still hobbling and my back isn't quite right, it looks like I may need an operation. At least I'll get an insurance payout...............

I'm still suffering from jetlag so it's off to bed soon. My final connection from Tokyo to Hakodate almost got cancelled (we were warned it may have to return to Tokyo because of heavy snow at Hakodate Airport) but luckily it was able to land, my god I swear I'll never travel in winter again if I can help it.

More snow forecast for next week but I have a feeling some interesting birds will come with the bad weather. Not only waxwings, I think I saw some Crossbills from the car window too.......

All told it's good to be back, 2011 will be a good year I think.........

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On this day (January 7th)....................

January 7th 2009.

An immature White Tailed Eagle at Yakumo, another 'out of the car window' photo taken with an irate driver tapping her fingers on the wheel and muttering bilingual obscenities at the photographer............

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On this day (January 3rd)....................

January 3rd 2008.

Another very lucky encounter with a Stellers Sea Eagle. This was a rushed job, taken from the car window on a dangerous curve on an icy road in Yakumo. The low shutter speed didn't affect the IQ too much thankfully..............

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On this day (January 2nd)....................

January 2nd 2009.

The first 2 or 3 weeks of January always seem to be the best time of catching Stellers Sea Eagles close to the road in Yakumo, this obliging one was next to a small car park by the river and even hung around for a minute or two allowing me to get my camera settings right (the sun was directly behind it).

And 3 years earlier (January 2nd 2006) this was my first ever photo of any bird, an awful digiscoped Stellers Sea Eagle. This was in a great location but the weather was quite awful and also I didn't know what the hell I was doing...............not much changed on the last point then.

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New Year 2010/11

A Ruff at Martinmere a few days ago. The snow has all melted and now we just have dull grey drizzly weather: at least this means my flight back next week should be unaffected..............

I visited various well known locales in the last 10 days or so. At Fairhaven there was a good selection of waders on the beach but the lake was frozen over and the only thing of interest there was a male Shoveler on the ice. The waders were fairly close but the sun was right behind them meaning no decent photos to speak of. I did take this though, part of a small flock of finches. I thought it was a Twite at first but on second thoughts it may just be a Linnet.

I also managed to limp down to the river in Penwortham. Not much at all here except lots of Redwings and Fieldfare and a lone Merlin. The ice drifting down the river on the incoming tide looked like something you would see in Alaska, I'd never seen this before in Preston................

Lapland Bunting had been reported near here the week before but the only Buntings I could find were Reed Buntings..............

At Marshside there were no birds at all, this drake Gadwall was on the frozen Marine Lake.

Martinmere was better, lots of Whooper Swans plus the usual ducks and geese plus plenty of Ruff..........

At Fleetwood there were lots more waders on the beach but it was so cold and dark photos were out of the question so here's a Robin in Penwortham...............

I have a new respect for bird photographers in the UK. In Japan the birds seem a touch tamer and consistently dark dull days are the exception rather than the norm.

So a bit quiet on the birding front, one thing I've noticed is that Common Buzzards are everywhere and there appear to be at least 3 Nuthatch territories near my parents' house (the latter was a scarce bird when I was last living here and the former was only common in upland areas I recall).

So Happy New Year to all those who follow this blog.................

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

December 25th 2007.

A Goose for Christmas.

Joining the Whooper Swan flock at Onuma 3 years ago were 6 Geese, 2 Bean and 4 White Fronted. This is one of the latter. Flocks can be seen in spring especially but a few individuals, presumably stragglers from the main flocks further south, occur in winter..............

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A Christmas Nightmare

An Iceland Gull in Preston this afternoon, this well known individual has been around a while now. Notice it is on ice, Preston is as cold as I can remember it being in my lifetime and even by Hokkaido standards it's pretty damn cold.

My journey to Preston from Japan was an unmitigated disaster. I got to Amsterdam OK but on arriving to an icebound airport it became clear something was wrong when we had to wait on the runway about 2 hours as all the landing docks were occupied by frozen planes. I disembarked in time to see my connection had been cancelled and learned I would have to spend the night on the airport. I had no change of clothes and no cash. Thousands of people were milling around, no airline staff were on view anywhere. I joined the queue for the transfer desk with the thousands of others and spent the night slumped over a baggage trolley.

The next morning nothing was happening and after various rumours and wild goose chases I ended up at a gate that had a plane going to Manchester, me and hundreds of others. KLM gave priority for those with tickets for that flight and it was basically bad luck to all of the rest of us who had been waiting up to 24 hours. Things got pretty ugly at that point and the airline staff had to call security, eventually common sense prevailed and we got on the next flight. I had spent 48 hours with no sleep and no change of clothes when I finally got to Manchester to find my luggage was not there. I filled out a form and left the airport, in the chaotic scenes I didn't get a receipt and had to call later for a reference number to track my bag. KLM, the f**kwits, rather than sending my bags on the next flight to Manchester decided to send it via Paris and Bristol and 4 days later it still hasn't arrived. So I have hardly any clothes to wear and no christmas presents to give anyone. Oh and I just caught a cold too.

2010 just gets worse and worse.

At least the Iceland Gull was still around.

On this day (December 20th)....................

December 20th 2006.


Ural Owl at Omuma. This was a digiscoped shot, just after I'd finally got a decent tripod. Shutter speed was exactly 1 second!


This is one of 3 Owl holes we know, this particular location is very close to the road. Other Owls have used it since (or is it still the same individual?).