Spring 2011........

I always have a few days off at the end of March, it can be a good time for birds. The strong westerlies that tend to blow at this time often waft a Hoopoe or 2 over from mainland Asia. Not today, I spent a birdless morning in Yunokawa (it used to be a good place for birds but unfortunately development along the river has ruined it) andso in the afternoon I headed over to Irifune to check out the Brent Geese.

The numbers increase at this time of year (there were about 70 or 80 today) and they are much more active than in winter...................

I fired off lots of BIF shots, it was a bit tricky trying to focus on a fast moving flock against fast changing backgrounds. I should maybe be trying some different settings here, my BIF settings work OK if there is one bird against a clean background but a lot of today's shots ended up in the trash. Perhaps I should enable all focus points or change the tracking priority in the custom functions or something...............

It was a pleasant enough day but pretty windy..........

The Irifune area seemed to have escaped unscathed from the tsunami. I could sit down on the concrete with the fish bones and goose sh*t to get some group shots.

The Harlequin Ducks were still present but as shy as ever.........

Not much else around, some Red Breasted Merganser and several Glaucous Winged Gull in amongst the commoner Gull species.........

I basically have another 3 days off and the weather forecast looks promising so I may go back one more time for the Brent BIFs.

My doorbell rang about an hour ago and it was my neighbours. I've hardly ever spoken to them in all the time I've been living here (8 1/2 years!). They said they would be moving tomorrow and apologised in advance for the noise. I didn't realise I'd been here so long, their kids have grown up and are leaving home, they were snotty nosed elementary schoolkids when we first moved here. God I feel old........

I hope the Japanese government sorts out that power plant ASAP. No radiation up here (so far, fingers crossed and let's hope those westerlies blow a while longer) but c'mon, sort it out FFS.............

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Winter fades away............

Not a vintage week for photos.

A drake Black Scoter at Sawara this afternoon (above). 

We spent Sunday visiting fishing ports (4 in all) looking for Black Necked Grebes and other harbour birds but there were none to be seen anywhere. The last 3 years have seen large numbers of the 3 marine Grebe species plus divers and murrelets in the ports but today all we could find were a few of the commoner duck species such as these Harlequin Ducks, a bird I have few good shots of, today's were nothing to write home about.

I have yet to get a decent shot of a Black Scoter, they seem to be very shy and it is difficult to nail the exposure on such a blackish bird. They have a big yellow bill that is visible with the naked eye even when they are bobbing about in the waves well offshore. These were fairly close but not that close.........

At Onuma the Mandarin Ducks have arrived, one of the earliest summer visitors. This is another attractive and very shy bird, another on the 'list' of birds I want to get a decent shot of.

This was just before sunset..............

A Stellers Sea Eagle flew over as were leaving in the car, I'm surprised to see one so late. Quite a few ducks at Onuma now as the lake slowly thaws, sharing the ice free patch with the Mandarins were Pintails, Goosander, Smew, Goldeneye and the common stuff like Mallard and Tufted Duck.

In the forest I looked in vain for Black Woodpecker (I haven't seen a single one yet this year), the tame Nuthatches were around as per usual.......

A very quiet week just gone by in Hakodate. The Siskins and Bramblings are both still around. The only photos I took were of a Vega and Slaty Backed Gull squabbling over a dead fish with a Large Billed Crow, as you can see the Vega Gull got the fish in the end........

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I watched England v Sri Lanka last night, well I watched the England innings. I thought I'd watch the end of the game (which I thought would be very tight and tense) after the England/Wales footy game. I'm glad I didn't.........losing by 10 wickets is just embarrassing.

At least they didn't f**k up in the football, mind you Wales look as weak a side as England have played in recent years. I expected a feistier show from the Welsh, they just seemed to give up after the 2nd goal. And England seemed to let them off the hook meaning a very dull last 75 minutes..........

I had to endure Chris Coleman as an 'expert' summariser. Nice enough chap I'm sure but my god, if he's an expert then I'm a world class bird photographer.

Strange days

Strange days. I still have some half baked fears over plumes of radiation drifting up here (the wind will blow from the south some time tomorrow). Irrational fear I know but I've never really been very rational, one of my many faults.

Still no Crossbills around. There have been small flocks of Brambling (heavily cropped male above, almost in summer plumage) and Siskin in the local park. Other stuff included Dusky Thrush, Wren, Daurian Redstart, Long Tailed and Coal Tit, Black Faced Bunting, Hawfinch, Teal and Tufted Duck................but nothing particularly unusual.

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On this day (March 22nd)...................

March 22nd 2008.

Common Crossbill in Hakodate.

Very close (this pic was uncropped) and because I had presumably been shooting something else in very different light just before way overexposed (400mm at 1/160sec, F8, ISO 400) this shot still managed to look almost OK.

My fave passerine species, what little characters these are............a big shame I haven't seen any for the last 2 years in Hakodate, indeed my only Crossbill sightings in Hokkaido since May 2009 was a distant treetop flock in Onuma a few weeks ago......

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Winter ending...............

A Great Crested Grebe in the harbour in Kamiiso this morning. Last March this same little harbour was full of Black Necked Grebes, hundreds of them. This year they haven't come though (and there were none in Shikabe yesterday either). Not much at Kamiiso at all although I did see see the first returning Osprey of the year...........

Winter is on its way out. Patches of open water are appearing at Onuma. There were 5 White Tailed Eagles and one Stellers Sea Eagle. Usually they were sitting in the middle of the icy lake but occasionally one would lazily flap over.

And all the ducks would panic...........

Small flocks of Whooper Swans, presumably stopping over after coming up from the south, were in the ricefields at Ono........

There were lots of Grey Herons at Onuma too, again I think they are probably new arrivals.......

The tame Tits and Nuthatches seemed a bit scarce today, the usual common resident species were around. Here's one of the local Red Foxes........

After a week fretting over radiation and the end of the world it was nice to spend a couple of quiet afternoons in Onuma. I hope this is a good spring for Japan.

One week on..............

A Great Egret on the river near my apartment this morning.

It's one week since the earthquake. The unease regarding the Fukushima Power Plant, the grief and sadness after all those people died and the memories of those shocking scenes as the waves hit is shredding everyone's nerves.

Walking round the neighbourhood checking the birds takes my mind of such things. Slightly.

There have been 2 Great Egrets on the river for a while now. Normally they are very skittish and fly off as soon as they see me but today one of them ignored me and I could watch it fishing..........

It was only catching tiddlers............

It seemed to be shivering a lot. It must have been very hungry to have been bothering with such tiny fish...........

I've been hoping the Crossbills would be around but no sign of them anywhere. There are small flocks of Brambling, Hawfinch and Siskin................

And some Long Tailed Rosefinch...........a bird I can never get a decent shot of.

Also around are Little Grebe, Red Breasted Merganser, Goldeneye, Scaup, Coal Tit, Dusky Thrush and Daurian Redstart.

Let's hope the weekend brings some better news. The Power Plant under control and warmth, medicine and hot food for the survivors would be a good start.

Waxwings #2

Some more Waxwing shots from a couple of days ago. They have an odd way of feeding, it seems to involve swallowing the berries partially, spitting them out again and catching them mid air........

I used continuous shooting hoping to catch some more interesting facial expressions........

It's been a good winter for Waxwings, that's for sure..........

Everything is still very worrying here, every day I wake up hoping they've sorted out the nuclear plant only to find it is getting worse if anything. There are still small quakes several times a day too.

Although I have permanent residency here I still need a re-entry permit in my passport (if I don't I'd lose my residency status when I visit abroad), it ran out last month so I'm off to get a new one this afternoon. Better keep my options open although I doubt very much I'll need to flee. Still, a couple of weeks on a beach in Thailand whilst the situation here resolves itself would be very very appealing, shame I'm skint eh?