A Snowy Sunday in December

Some adult Stellers Sea Eagles at Yakumo this afternoon. These (and most of the eagle BIF shots below) were taken in a 5 minute period when the blizzards stopped and the skies cleared briefly.

The day started off on a very cold windswept beach looking for Snow Buntings in a blizzard. This has been one of my bogey species in Japan, everyone else seems loads of 'em but until today not me (though I've seen them in the UK before).

There were 6 of them. They were difficult to approach and like I say the weather was just atrocious.

In amongst them were 4 Lapland Buntings, they were even shyer..........this was the best I could manage.

The eagles were up in the trees sitting out the blizzard.............this one was during a very temporary lull in the snow.

When the sun did break through several of the eagles took off..........this is an adult White Tailed Eagle.

Most of the birds my camera was chasing were Stellers though.........

The weather soon closed in again..............

And finally an immature of both species as the skies grew gloomier and gloomier.......

It was the first real heavy snow of the winter, it was just about possible to walk off road in Yakumo today but that'll probably be the last time until spring.

Not much else around, we had a look at the port in Oshamanbe, there were only Scaup, Black Necked Grebe and Goldeneye. Lots of Great Egrets everywhere too.

Liverpool won, now up to #6, will they get any higher?

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On this day (December 10th)...........

December 10th 2008.

A Winter Wren in Goryokaku Park 3 years ago, not a bird I often get to photograph. As you can see it is very different looking subspecies to the one in the UK...........

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10 Great Egrets

This morning was sunny so I took a walk down the river to see if the egrets were still around. They most certainly were, TEN of them to be precise, 10 Great Egret on the pokey little 'river' in Hakodate!

One of them seemed to be quite a bit smaller than the others (a different subspecies perhaps?) but they were all Great Egrets, the Little Egret must have left in the 2-3 weeks since I was last here.

They were catching little tiddlers in the shallow river........

Hardly seems worth the effort, unless the small fish are especially tasty to an egret.......

These typical BIF shots show the egrets were in the middle of town.........

There was one Grey Heron in with the egrets and other stuff around included 7 species of duck on the river (15 or so Tufted Duck, 2 Pochard, 5 Scaup, 1 female Goldeneye, several Mallard, lots of Teal and Spotbilled Ducks), Kingfisher, Grey Wagtail, Dusky Thrush, Sparrowhawk and Daurian Redstart. In Goryokaku Park there were 5 Coot and 5 drake Pochard on the moat (which still hasn't frozen).

Otherwise a very quiet week, the weather was pretty lousy most of the time and I was also quite busy with work. I've heard both Snow Bunting and Rough Legged Buzzard have arrived in south Hokkaido, these 2 are my top 2 targets this winter, they've both proved to be bogey species for me, hopefully I can see them soon..........

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A windy Sunday

It has been very windy the last couple of days and strong easterlies brought large flocks of Black Legged Kittiwakes to the coast. In among the flock were 3 very rare Red Legged Kittiwake, one of the birds I most want to see. Osamu found them yesterday and e-mailed me.

I went to the port where he'd seen the birds (in a flock of 4000 Black Legged Kittiwakes).

I found the grand total of ONE Black Legged Kittiwake and not a red leg in sight anywhere...........although it was still windy the wind had changed direction and it seemed all the kittiwakes had upped and left. Well, all except one that is. There were 8 species of Gull but nothing especially interesting. I don't often go 'twitching' but I still felt the twinge of disappointment. They do appear to be fairly regular, I just need to be ready next year when the easterlies hit I guess.......

There was a small group of Harlequin Duck in the port at least.

I always seem to mess up the exposure on these and when I try and process them on the computer afterwards (using shadow/highlights and tweaking the WB) they always look a little unnatural like these shots............

This harbour isn't the most pleasant place to hang around. It's always cold and windy and it's covered in bird s**t. Indeed my wife calls it 'the s**tty harbour'.

The Harlequins were bobbing around on the rough waves in one corner..........

A Black Necked Grebe popped up unexpectedly........

Other stuff around included Brent Goose, White Tailed Eagle and Goldeneye.

We then gave up on the Kittiwakes and headed back to Onuma when the sun came out and we fed the tame Tits and Nuthatches again, they were striking some nice poses.

It was raining a lot the last couple of days, there was no snow at Onuma and the lake isn't anywhere near frozen yet. These shots still have a very autumnal feel to them.

I'm sure by next weekend everything will be all white..........

All Liverpool's rivals won yesterday. That's not good.

Hopefully the (imminent?) snow and ice will bring a few new species to photograph............and you never know if the wind blows in the right direction and I can persuade my wife to drive me to the s**tty harbour there may be a small cute Gull with short red legs there.

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Sunshine in the harbour

Yesterday saw me hanging around the harbour in Kamiiso most of the day. The weather was mild and the light was very good for taking photos of the various common winter birds in the harbour.

My main target was Black Necked Grebe, there were about a dozen of them. They were in the small port chasing small fish.........

A couple of the grebes didn't look so healthy, they seemed yo have some nasty growths/tumours around their beaks and eyes, I won't put you off your food by uploading those photos.

They whizzed around the port making their whistling calls..........

And the water was so calm I got some nice reflections.........

Sorry, a little repetitive I know. Here's the most interesting grebe shot of the day........

Other stuff in and near the harbour included Great Crested Grebe, Black Scoter, Goldeneye, Red Breasted Merganser and lots of Scaup.

The pair of Harlequin Duck were still present, I finally get close to these in nice light but all I get is a female and immature male................life just isn't fair sometimes...........

There were several Glaucous Gull around, they tend to be much shyer than the resident Slatybacks, this BIF of a young one was the best I could manage today.........

On one of the 2 nearby rivers there were loads of salmon still spawning and lots of Black Headed Gulls feasting on the roe. Other stuff on the rivers included Wigeon, Pintail, Goosander, over 20 (!) Great Egret, Grey Heron, Coot and Pochard...........

The rain came back last night, it keeps getting cold then getting mild and wet again. C'mon winter, get your act together.

The Euro 2012 draw looks interesting, we've got one host nation, one bogey team and France. Could have been worse, could have been better. If we just get out of the group I'll be happy.

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