Yesterday morning I got up bright and early. The White Winged Crossbills had apparently stuck around, Osamu had seen them last weekend and had taken a very nice photo too.
When I got there it was warm and beautifully sunny. There were 2 or more very vocal Wrynecks around, a couple of Oriental Honey Buzzard high overhead, Grey Wagtail and Sand Martin also heading north but no Crossbills. Eventually I heard some calling but when I located them they had no white on their wings, they were just 3 Common Crossbills (as you can see from the picture above). The White Wingeds must have finally gone. Oh well.
There were 4 or 5 Japanese Waxwing high up in the trees, this is the latest I've seen any Waxwing species in Hakodate.
It's been rather warm the last couple of days, Osamu got some nice overshoot waders a couple of days ago. I hope they are still around this weekend when I can get over to Ono.............
Not much around near my apartment. Quite a few Asian Brown Flycatchers and some more Blue and White Flycatchers, here's a female in Goryokaku Park a few days ago.
Some Red Necked Pharalope seen on the Tomakomai pelagic trip yesterday.
A Pacific Diver in sumer plumage, we saw several of these including one fairly close to the boat, close enough for us to hear its eerie call above the sound of the wind and waves.
It was a good say for alcids. Two of those we saw were lifers...........the bird of the day for most on the boat was this Long Billed Murrelet, here's a very heavily cropped record shot.
Most of the photos are pretty heavily cropped actually. There were also lots of Brunnichs Guillemots, some in full summer plumage, some not. This was another new bird for me.
Quite a few Ancient Murrelets were around too but the commonest alcid of the day was Rhinoceros Auklet.
My 'target' bird (at least for photos) was Red Necked Pharalope, there were some around but not the vast flocks I had been hoping for.
It was very difficult (for me at least) to photograph them from the boat. The sea was a little choppy and the movement up and down of the boat and waves combined with a narrow filed of view between the people sat in front of me made it really hard ro get a lock on the birds. I'm not really familiar with photography from a ship and I am also very unsteady on my feet on a small boat................
Still it was great to see such a beautiful bird up close.........
BIF shots were slightly easier.
They seem to have found something tasty near this buoy..........
It was a long day (7 hours on a fairly small boat) but an enjoyable one. No Albatross, Skuas or Terns but we did see a few Short Tailed Shearwater. One of the people on the boat was Mark Brazil, a well- known Hokkaido based birder and author of several books about birds in Japan and east Asia, it was nice chatting to someone who really knows their stuff.
We had driven up to Tomakomai the day before, on the way we saw several roadside Lathams Snipe in Oshamanbe.
I tried to take a video..............
On the beach there were some waders. Ruddy Turnstone, lots of Grey Tailed Tattlers, Common Sandpiper and some Red Necked Stint, the latter were coming into summer plumage.
I was very surprised to see 3 Yellow Wagtail with the stints. Again, heavy cropping going on here..............
Yellow Wagtails are pretty scarce in Japan, one subspecies breeds in north Hokkaido. This one is a different subspecies to that however, it has a blue head as you can see (the Hokkaido one doesn't).
Other birds seen on the way included Pacific Swift, Osprey and some of Tomakomai's famous Magpies.
This ia another scarce bird in Japan and is normally only seen in the south (it is abundant in Korea however). 20 or so years ago they appeared in Tomakomai, a bit of a mystery there......
I pottered around in Utonai-ko on Saturday afternoon. Eastern Crowned Warbler, Siberian Rubythroat, Brown Thrush, Little Ringed Plover, Common Sandpiper, Lathams Snipe, Oriental Cuckoo, Wigeon, Pintail, Whooper Swan, Mute Swan, White Tailed Eagle, Eastern Marsh Harrier, Long Tailed Rosefinch, Reed Bunting, Great Spotted and Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, Nuthatch, Marsh Tit and Russet Sparrow were around but nothing posed for the camera.........
Thanks again for Tomoyuki Namba for arranging the boat trip, I hope to join them again 2 or 3 times this year.........
Thanks also to my wife for doing a lot of driving.
There were some issues on blogger last week, I couldn't log in or do anything for a while and it appears some comments have disappeared too (if you left any comments last Thursday/Friday they seem to have vanished).
A male Narcissus Flycatcher and a male Blue and White Flycatcher in Goryokaku Park today.
There were at least 2 male Narcissus and 1 or 2 females too. The males looked of both species slightly raggedy, I guess they were born last year and are finally moulting into adult plumage.
They were very active but not really shy. The park was very busy and was looking very nice with the blossoms gently falling from the trees. The atmosphere was slightly spoiled by a drunk oyaji trying to talk to me (whilst I was taking photos of the flycatchers), I said I was busy and he burped and urinated against a tree. Classy.
As you can see they are a quite beautiful looking little bird, even when eating a spider.........
There were also a couple of Blue and White Flycatchers, male and female. This male still had some brown on its wings.........
And this one is, I think, an Asian Brown Flycatcher.
Lots of Eastern Crowned Warblers in the trees too. The Russet Sparrows were present on the river yesterday but seem to have upped and left as of today. The only birds of interest on the river were a fly past Kingfisher and a lone singing Oriental Reed Warbler.
Yesterday was a bit of a frustrating one. I got up early to try and take pictures of the Red Cheeked Starlings in the big cherry blossom tree. Last year there were 2 or 3 pairs there but this year only one pair seem to have taken up residence there and they didn't stick around for photos so much. This is the female.
I wanted to take a video (I even lugged my tripod along), this was all I could manage though.....
You can hear Japanese White-eye in the background, there were loads of them around yesterday.
I decided to go to Kamiiso, I was convinced there would be lots of waders on the beach. I walked 3 or 4 miles and all I got was one solitary Whimbrel flying off into the distance. A few Scaup were offshore as well as a pair of summer plumaged Great Crested Grebe and hundreds of Black Headed Gulls (also in summer plumage, they are the only hooded gull in Hokkaido and look fairly exotic). I missed an Osprey diving into the river and catching a fish by a few seconds..................like I say it was a tiring frustrating day.
In the harbour there were a few Common Sandpiper and 3 Grey Tailed Tattler.
I've been watching the Red Riding trilogy, a tad depressing but I'm enjoying it.
I'll miss the FA Cup final (I'll be in Tomakomai for a pelagic trip, weather permitting). I can remember when this was the big game of the season and the whole day was an experience sitting down in front of the TV. Now it is almost an irrelevance, I can't even recall who won it last year. Chelsea, I think? Who did they beat? God knows.
A male Narcissus Flycatcher at Onuma. This is a very common summer visitor and one of the most beautiful birds in Japan, it is also very active and tricky to get a good picture of. In the 3 years since I've been trying to get a killer shot of one this one still remains my fave.........
There are loads of them buzzing around in the forest at Onuma but from about the 3rd week of May the foliage thickens and the forest becomes darker making it more difficult to photograph them. Early May is therefore the prime time but I haven't had chance to get over to Onuma for a while so may miss out again in 2011, still, there's always next year...........
