A Sunday in Onuma

The weather has relented a little, we could actually leave Hakodate this afternoon. The snow was piled up head high on the sides of the road but we've only had light snow this week, the main roads were clear. It was still overcast though and only common birds were around but it was a relief to get out of town for the first time in ages (actually only just 2 weeks but it felt longer).

The tame tits and nuthatches in Onuma all appeared to have survived the cold spell.

It was nice to get some shots of them in the snow, shame the light wasn't great.

In the group there are 2 Nuthatches and 2 Varied Tits, one individual of each species is very tame and the other is more wary.

There are also at least 2 Eastern Great Tits, these are much shyer.

And there are 4 or so Marsh Tits. Or rather Marsh and Willow Tits. Most of them have glossy caps and short stubby bills, this one doesn't seem to. Is it a Willow Tit? I have to say I never really check. Perhaps I should do.

Not much else in the forest, Great Spotted Woodpecker, lots of Dusky Thrush, a distant Black Woodpecker calling, several Jay, a single Hawfinch.

I've disabled word verification for comments. Recently blogger have introduced that ghastly 2 word verification where one of the words is almost impossible to read, it is a right pain in the arse. I urge you to do the same. It is easy to do, see here for instructions. You can still set it up so you have to approve the comments: your blog will not be full of spam.

Thanks for clicking this link


人気ブログランキングへ

Dusky Thrushes

I could take my first bird photos for almost 2 weeks today, a large flock of 100 or so Dusky Thrush was feeding on the berries in the trees on a street in the middle of town.

This is a common winter visitor but they didn't arrive in any numbers until a couple of weeks ago when the weather turned nasty. I was hoping to see some vagrants with them, a Naumanns Thrush of Fieldfare perhaps but nothing doing there.

I hope they leave some food for any late Waxwings...........

A Sparrowhawk was around and spooked the thrushes several times. I was spooked too by the arrival of 2 burly men in suits. They flashed their police badges (the thrushes were across from the main Police HQ in Hakodate) and told me I had to move for 'security' reasons (I was standing in a car park used by the police apparently). I wish I could say 'oh go and catch some real criminals you corrupt incompetent idiots' but I don't know the Japanese for that so I just tutted under my breath and moved like they asked. In retrospect I'm glad my Japanese is limited sometimes...........

Nothing much else around, here's some kind of weasel a couple of days ago down the river........

Thanks for clicking this link.........


人気ブログランキングへ

On this day (February 17th)

February 17th 2008.

A Long Tailed Tit near my apartment 4 years ago today. That winter there was a regular flock of this species foraging in the trees and bushes next to the river. Since that time I've seen the grand total of one LT Tit in the same area.

You have to say it's cute. Admit it.

Nothing doing this week photo-wise, nothing at all. The heavy snow finally relented from Monday but it is still lying in big piles everywhere meaning it's difficult to walk around, it's still pretty cold. There have been a few birds present: a distant adult White Tailed Eagle was a nice balcony bird on the 15th,  there have been a couple of Peregrines around, a lone flyover Great Egret, Sparrowhawk, a couple of Red Breasted Merganser well upstream near my apartment and large flocks of Dusky Thrush. Still no Waxwing though, maybe this winter will be waxwingless.

Thanks for clicking this link.

Still snowing............

It has been snowing ALL week, Hakodate has its heaviest snowfall since 1985 and birding has been reduced to zero. The above Rough Legged Buzzard was taken over a week ago and I haven't taken a single bird picture since last weekend.

We tried to go back to the Buzzard location today but the driving blizzards prevented us from even leaving town so we headed back to the monkey hot spring.

I tried processing these in monochrome.

The end of December/start of January produced lots of BIF shots in Yakumo, here are some previously rejected ones that I didn't upload at the time.

My god it was sunny that day. And not snowing.

Blue sky!

I watched the Liverpool/Man U game last night. I don't often get hot and bothered by the footy anymore except for this fixture.................

I'm in a bit of a dilemma. New lens or new computer? My computer is 4 years old and whilst still OK for most things it has been annoyingly slow processing photos recently especially in Lightroom. I want to do all my processing in Lightroom but my 4 year old processer just can't render the images quickly, it takes 5 or 6 seconds to render one 7D RAW file. For individual files it's just about bearable but it's impossible to review and cull images quickly.

I had hoped to get a new lens this spring, I want something better than the 100-400L. Trouble is the next step up is SO expensive. Actually it is so expensive it is all but impossible. I really want a 500 f4 but the new one (which still hasn't been released) is beyond my humble means as is every Canon supertele suitable for birders. I thought about that new Sigma 120-300 f2.8 OS (which is affordable) but..................if I buy a Sigma I'll still be yearning for a better Canon lens some time down the line and to be honest I'm not convinced the Sigma will be a big enough step up from what I have now in terms of IQ and performance. Secondhand Canon? Still expensive and I'm not sure I'd be able to pay in installments (the only way I'll be able to pay).

Hope it stops snowing soon...........otherwise I'll be stuck in front of a slow computer cursing the fact lenses are so expensive and I'll never be able to afford one.

Thanks for clicking this link.......


人気ブログランキングへ

Waxwings..........from last winter.

Last winter in Hakodate saw lots of Waxwings of both species. I haven't seen a single one so far this year and the last week's weather has been so bad I've hardly been out of the house so forgive the archive photos.........



A Japanese Waxwing in the park near my flat last winter, the above photo was taken in December 2010 as was this one in the same small park..........



I visited England shortly after taking the above shots and even saw Bohemian Waxwing in Preston............when I got back to Japan in early January there were still loads of Japanese Waxwing everywhere like this lone individual in a small tree in the middle of town.





By late January most of the Japanese Waxwings had gone and were replaced by Bohemians..............these were on a suburban street in the north of town





They remained until the middle of March, a small flock took up residence in a secluded park next to my apartment.

They are always erratic, some winters they are abundant, other winters not so common and occasional winters completely absent. Last year there were still Japanese Waxwing passing through Hakodate in mid to late May...........

Now I've posted these old photos loads of waxwings will probably start arriving..........

So Fabio upped and left, don't know if that is a good or bad thing. I'm sure we won't do anything at Euro 2012 anyway no matter who is in charge but I quite fancy 'Arry as a temporary appointment, we can't play any worse than the last World Cup anyway.

Hope it stops snowing soon, there really is a lot of it outside and it hasn't really stopped all week.

Thanks for clicking this link.....


人気ブログランキングへ