Another quiet November week......

A male Blue Rock Thrush at Irifune yesterday. Another very quiet week in Hakodate..........the 2 Brent Geese were still there (but in the middle of the marina) and there was only 1 Harlequin Duck (which was too far away for a photo).

Shame the light was right behind the thrush.........

The egrets were still around most of the week although yesterday there only seemed to be one Great Egret left..........and that flew off straight away too.

In Goryokaku Park a couple of days ago there were a few birds on the moat, 2 Scaup (there was also one of these on the river too), 1 Tufted Duck, 3 Wigeon, 1 Little Grebe, 3 Coot and this male Pochard.

Not much else around town (although I haven't been looking terribly hard).

I'll go to Yakumo tomorrow, hopefully I'll have some eagle pictures to post soon...........

My ancient now broken analogue TV will be replaced next week, hopefully my ancient (non HD) satellite tuner will work with the new one. Good job there's no footy on this weekend. Unless you count England getting spanked by Spain tonight. Luckily that's on too late for me to watch and endure..........

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Another grey autumnal weekend

After several fine clear days the grey skies and rain returned: another typical late autumn weekend. We headed out east to Esan, I tried to get some Harlequin Duck shots.

It was too dark and the birds were too skittish, the only time I got to this spot and found co-operative birds and nice weather was almost exactly four years ago. This shot from that day was taken with my old $120 Sigma zoom at just 214mm.

I need to go there and be patient, unfortunately it's not really accessible by public transport so I have to rely on the wife giving me a lift and hanging around so time is never on my side. Next year, next year.....

This Pelagic Cormorant was one of many at Esan........

Another common coastal bird around these here parts is Blue Rock Thrush, another blue skittish bird. This is a female.

A few recent annoyances have left me a little grumpy, even grumpier than usual. My computer seems to be having wi-fi problems with the new router and last night my ancient analogue TV finally packed in (just before the footy kicked off).  The analogue signal was switched off this summer, the only thing I watched was footy through the old Sky digital tuner (which still worked). So now I have to buy new TV and new tuner and maybe a new satellite dish too. Before my computer picked up various internet problems I could easily watch illegal feeds of the Premier League but none of the high quality ones seem to work anymore................

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

November 5th 2008.

Varied Tit at Onuma 3 years ago, I kind of like this picture. It isn't so sharp (lens wide open and slow shutter speed: it was rather dark) but it has a nice autumnal feel to it..........

So far this autumn the tame Nuthatches and Varied Tits have yet to appear, I hope they're OK.

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Mellow autumn continues......

A drake Harlequin Duck in Hakodate this morning, there were about 10 of them in their regular spot. This spot being a very quiet little fishing harbour at Irifune. They rarely come close, the above shot (cropped) was the best I could muster today.

The first Brent Geese have arrived too..........

They were rather wary though............

Not much else around. A Goshawk was a nice flyover, there were a couple of Pelagic Cormorants offshore, that's about it.

The weather has been extremely mild this week, warm even. The egrets are still on the local river, by Friday (today) there were 4 Great Egrets and 1 Little Egret. The latter isn't so common in Hokkaido, this last couple of weeks has given me a good chance to photograph the species.

It's a shame all these shots are looking down from the top of the concrete embankment: it's impossible to get down to eye level...........and lighting/exposure is a problem (for me) wherever they are anyway.

The Little Egret had an interesting method of fishing, it seemed to be stirring up the river bed with its feet. It looked bizzarre but it seemed to work: it flushed several fish which were gobbled up quickly.

And here's one of the Great Egrets........

Other stuff in Hakodate this week included Rustic Bunting, Coal and Varied Tit, Brown Dipper, Red Flanked Bluetail, Daurian Redstart, Jay, Little Grebe, Coot, Wigeon...........typical autimn stuff really. At Kamiiso there were more Great Egret  and Coot as well as lots of common ducks including Goosander, Pintail, Wigeon and Pochard, Glaucous Winged Gull and Long Tailed Rosefinch.

At Onuma yesterday I tried to get better photos of the Black Woodpeckers in nice light but they weren't co-operating at all and stayed well out of range of the camera. A shame as the light at Onuma was stunning........

Hopefully the first icy blasts will hit south Hokkaido soon and bring some winter birds with it..........

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Late autumn in south Hokkaido

A Black Necked Grebe at Toya a couple of days ago: there gather on the lake in late autumn although they are usually too far out for photos unless they're in a flock like this........

On the way we stopped at Yakumo: the eagles hadn't arrived yet although we did see 3 Crested Kingfisher. At the river mouth were a flock of Great Egret and a small group of Whooper Swan too. Great Egret were everywhere; Onuma, Yakumo and Oshamanbe (and the Ribble too I hear).

Toya isn't so great for birding to be honest. There were the usual common ducks. a few feral Mute Swan and small flocks of Goosander......

We stayed in one of the large hot spring hotels on the lakeside, we could see the Grebes from our 9th room floor. The hotel was a bit tacky and noisy but it didn't stop me doing my usual trick of eating and drinking way too much before passing out about 9pm.

Before the eating and drinking we visited the small island in the middle of the lake, it looked potentially good for birding but at this time of the year there were only the usual common tits, nuthatches and woodpeckers.

On the way back there were flocks of Brown and Eye Browed Thrush in Kuromatsunai and at Yakumo there were the first Black Scoter of the winter as well as several Great Crested Grebe and 8 species of gull including 30 or so Black Legged Kittiwake.

Today we briefly checked Ono.........a Merlin was chasing some kind of Snipe, 2 Whooper Swan and 1 Bewicks Swan flew over too. Near Sawara there were lots more Black Legged Kittiwake......

As you can see it was very dark today. At Onuma the forest was full of birds. Lots of Jay, more Whooper Swan and Great Egrets, Great Cormorant, Little Grebe, lots of Tits, Nuthatches and Woodpeckers here too. Most interesting was a pair of very active Black Woodpeckers. It was very very dark and also very hard to get a clear view. This was the best image I could manage.......

This autumn has seen many many Brown Bear sitings in Hokkaido. Apparently the bears are very hungry (their normal autumn food supply is rather scarce this year) and have been seen much closer to human habitation than normal. Some have been seen at Onuma, hence this rather alarming sign......

It's easy to snigger at the overcautiousness of the Japanese but bears can and do regularly kill folk in the mountains and forests of Hokkaido. One person who I teach had an uncle who was killed and partially eaten by one...................

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Toya Again

Taken with my cellphone

As you were..........again

A nice autumnal day after several rainy ones saw me take a walk down the river. The egrets were still there, indeed there were more than last time. 3 Great Egret, 1 Little Egret and 2 Grey Heron.

I missed the Little Egret catching a reasonable sized fish (it was behind a bushy area). Not much else around town. 5 or 6 Daurian Redstart in the bushes along the river (including several females: usually we only get males here), a couple of flyover Hawfinch, some Rustic or Black Faced Buntings hiding in the grass, Bullheaded Shrike, Coal Tit, small flocks of flyover Jay...........

I've had my 7D just over 2 years now and it sure is easy to take BIF shots..........

The top one is a Great Egret, the bottom one Little Egret.

6-1!!!!! I didn't see that coming...........

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A dark Sunday in October

A drake Harlequin Duck on the coast to the east of Hakodate. This is a spot I visit every autumn to see the Harlequins, one day they'll sit still striking nice poses on a sunny day. Today was not that day.

It was a dark dreary sort of day, not so good for photos. We stopped off in one of the larger city parks on the way to the ducks. There were lots of common autumn birds including Jay, Nuthatch and these 3 species of Tit. Eastern Great Tit, Coal Tit and Varied Tit. It was very very dark and the ISO was bumped up for these shots, they do look very very grainy......

God, watching Liverpool was frustrating last night. Another 2 points dropped. I make that 9 points already dropped this season in games when they missed LOTS of chances.

Hope the Manc derby is good tonight, it kicks off in about 20 minutes. Rooney to get another red card? Tevez and Gary Neville to come to blows in the stands?

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As you were

A pretty quiet week, with pretty much the same birds around as last time I posted........

The Taiga Flycatcher was around until Wednesday, not a great picture but you can see its' diagnostic tail pattern very clearly. It was very very active and always seemed to stay in the shady areas.

Not much else passing through, a few Rustic and Black Faced Buntings, several Daurian Redstarts too. The vegetation is thinning meaning all the garbage people dump next to the river is visible again.........

There were 7 species of duck in town, 3 Pochard had joined the Scaup in Goryokaku Park (7 of them now) and there was a female Pintail on the river today as well.

The egrets were still around. 2 Great and 1 Little Egret, the latter is a bird I don't often photograph so I tried to get a good shot of it today. It was very jumpy and all I could manage were BIF shots.

Last Sunday we went to Yakumo. On the way I saw the season's first eagles, 2 young White Tailed I think but we couldn't stop. At Yakumo there were Great Crested Grebe, large numbers of Scaup and Wigeon and 7 species of Gull including the first Glaucous and Glaucous Winged of the winter, here's a shot a of the latter.

In previous Octobers I'd seen lots of Kittiwakes and Terns fishing at the river mouth, this day there were only Black Headed Gulls.......

I enjoyed the Liverpool/Man U game last week. Liverpool should have won, why was Henderson on as a sub up front trying to knock in headers at the end when Carroll was still on the bench?

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